Seeking Redemption in this Wonderful World
by Freddy Oakster
Summary: After his death at the end of the Fourth Great Shinobi War, Uchiha Sasuke is offered the chance to be reborn into a different world to help free it from the oppression of an individual known as the "Demon King". Eager to seek atonement for the crimes he committed in his past life, Sasuke accepts the offer without hesitation, a decision he might just come to regret.
1. A Chance for Redemption

**Summary:** _After his death at the end of the Fourth Great Shinobi War, Uchiha Sasuke is offered the chance to be reborn into a different world to help free it from the oppression of an individual known as the "Demon King". Eager to seek atonement for the crimes he committed in his past life, Sasuke accepts the offer without hesitation, a decision he might just come to regret._

 _ **Edit** : Some minor grammatic and spelling errors have been corrected, and an honorific has been added when Eris refers to Sasuke by name. _

**Disclaimer:** I own neither Naruto nor Kono subarashii sekai ni shukufuku wo. If I did, I wouldn't be writing this here of all places.

* * *

 **Chapter I:** A Chance for Redemption

From the moment he had challenged his rival to one last fight, he had known that he most likely wouldn't survive the encounter. Heck, he had even hoped that he wouldn't survive the encounter. He knew that even if he did survive, there could be no future for him, no place in the world that would rise from the ashes of the war that he had helped start.

By the time he had found his resolve to side with the Allied Shinobi Forces in their effort to stop Madara and the Akatsuki, he had already allowed his thirst for vengeance to drive him past the point of no return. And so, he had resolved to die at the hands of his best friend in the hopes that Naruto would earn recognition as the true hero of the Fourth Great Shinobi War, just like his brother had died in the hope that Sasuke himself would earn recognition as the hero who avenged the Uchiha Clan's murder. It was almost poetic in a way.

And that was how he had ended up... wherever it was he currently found himself. He was seated on a small chair, surrounded on all sides by an impenetrable black void. Opposite to him, another chair had been placed, though this one was empty and looked a bit more extravagant compared to the simple chair where Sasuke himself was seated, with a high backrest and intricate designs running down its' sides. To say that Sasuke was confused by this strange turn of events would be an understatement. Given the way that the shinobi who had been revived through the Reanimation Jutsu had talked about their experience with death, he had expected that his consciousness would simply end at the time of his death and he would cease to exist.

"Uchiha Sasuke?" a soft voice asked from somewhere behind him, causing Sasuke to stiffen and turn his head around so fast that a normal human would've gotten whiplash from the sudden movement.

Standing a few feet behind him was a young girl who appeared to be around his age, with dark blue eyes and a mane of silvery white hair that ran far down her back, almost like a cape of some sort. The girl was dressed in an outfit consisting mainly of dark blue and white with intricate golden details, complete with a dark blue headpiece. She was slightly out of breath and appeared harmless enough, but there was something about her that put Sasuke on edge. Like how she had managed to sneak up on him without him noticing her presence.

"Who's asking?" he asked warily while he slowly rose to his feet and turned around to face her, just in case she tried anything. A part of him was telling him that he was overreacting, as the girl didn't look like she had a bad bone in her body, but life as a missing-nin had taught him to never judge a book by its' cover. She didn't seem to be put off by his guarded behavior though, as she just offered him a nervous smile and straightened up.

"Ah, my apologies," she spoke as she approached him. "My name is Eris. In some worlds, I am known as the Goddess of Fortune."

Whatever answer Sasuke had expected from the girl, a claim to godhood certainly wasn't it. Upon hearing the outrageous claim, the Uchiha couldn't help but let out an indiscreet snort of disbelief, though he caught himself quickly enough to almost disguise it as a cough. Almost.

"Really?" he said as the self-proclaimed goddess walked past him towards the ornate chair that had been placed opposite to his own. "So am I to assume that you're here to judge me and send me on my way then?"

Seeing as Sasuke had never been one to believe in any kind of divinity, he didn't even bother to hide his skepticism at the girl's claim. Eris, however, took his attitude in stride and didn't appear bothered at all by his obvious disbelief as she took her place opposite to him. Instead, she simply offered him a serene smile.

"Well, I could if that is what you wish," she said. "However, if that was the only thing I could offer you, then you wouldn't even be here in the first place, Sasuke-san."

The 'goddess' left that statement hanging in the air as if trying to build up the tension for a big reveal. While Sasuke was still skeptical about Eris' claim to godhood, he figured he didn't have anything to lose by going along with it for now. He was already dead, after all.

"And what else, if I may ask, would you be able to offer me?" he voiced the question he knew she wanted him to ask.

Upon hearing the question, Eris' smile seemed to slip from her face to be replaced by a solemn expression that caused Sasuke to narrow his eyes in annoyance. He had always hated it when people pitied him. It made him feel small, almost as if the person who was pitying him was looking down on him.

"I can offer you a chance to redeem yourself."

The words seemed to echo in his head as if they had been spoken to him from the other end of a long tunnel. For a brief second, Sasuke's eyes widened as the meaning of the words sunk in, before his entire body tensed up like an animal ready to pounce. Before he could voice his outrage at the very thought that he could have any chance at redemption after what he'd done, that no matter what he did there was no way that anyone across the Elemental Nations and beyond would ever view him as anything but a villain, Eris held up a hand to keep him from interrupting her. And surprisingly, Sasuke found himself obliged to her silent request.

' _No,_ ' he thought as he slowly slid back into his seat. _'It wasn't a request as much as it was an order.'_ For a brief moment, there had been an unnatural intensity to the white-haired girl's gaze, and her gentle aura had been replaced by another presence entirely. _A presence worthy of a god_.

"I know what you have done, Sasuke. And perhaps in the eyes of your world, you never will be anything but a villain to be defeated, an obstacle to be overcome." Eris said as her face melted back into the solemn expression it had held before and her divine presence faded away. "But everyone deserves a chance for atonement. And if your world can't give it to you, then perhaps you could seek it in another?"

It took a few seconds for Sasuke's mind to catch on to what the goddess was telling him, but once it did he did a double take.

"You're sending me to another world?" he asked in shock. Given Team Seven's recent battle with Kaguya, it wasn't exactly a revelation to him that there existed other worlds besides his own. However, it had never occurred to him that there could be other worlds out there _inhabited by humans_ , or something akin to it. In his defense, he had been a bit busy fighting to save himself and life as they knew it to really give it much thought, but that was beside the point.

"Only if you accept my offer," Eris said, her smile softening slightly at his shocked expression and the slight twitching of her lips gave Sasuke the impression that she was trying to suppress a giggle at his reaction. "The world from which I hail is facing a terrible crisis at the hands of an individual known as the Demon King. With the situation getting worse every day, people who die refuse to be reborn into the world and thus the population is steadily declining. That's why I'm offering you this chance to be reborn into our world and help us in our time of need!"

All throughout her monologue, Sasuke had noticed that Eris appeared to steadily be growing more excited as she kept talking about what she was offering him. By the time she was finished, she had leaned forward slightly in her chair and her holy facade had slipped to reveal a hopeful glint in her eyes. Kind of odd for a goddess talking about the suffering of her people...

"Hold on, back up a second. What do you mean "people refuse to be reborn"?" he asked tentatively.

And just like that, the facade had been cracked.

"Eh? I didn't explain that already?" Eris asked, blinking in confusion.

When Sasuke shook his head in response, the girl's cheeks immediately began to heat up in embarrassment. Gone was the gentle and authoritative goddess and in her place was an embarrassed teenage girl shaking her head and hugging her arms over her chest, whispering incoherently to herself, of which Sasuke could only catch snippets.

"...messed up... first time... so embarrassing... Aqua-senpai would laugh at me..."

 **-X-X-X-X-X-**

"So hypothetically, how would this 'reincarnation' into your world interact with a Reanimation Jutsu if someone attempted to summon me back from the dead in my world?" Sasuke asked once they had gotten the discussion back on track. Apparently, this was Eris' first time guiding someone to the afterlife, after the goddess that had previously been entrusted with the task had 'taken on other responsibilities', and she had really wanted to do well on her first time.

"Well, as far as we can tell, they wouldn't be able to. It's impossible to know for certain since this is the first time we've picked someone from your world, but from what we can tell, accepting our offer would be equivalent to being sealed by the Shinigami in your world." Eris' explained, her cheeks still tinged a little pink from her little episode.

Sasuke hummed in thought, quietly mulling over what she had told him so far. Basically, Eris' world needed someone strong to help her people fight back against this Demon King fellow, and his only other option would be to return to his own realm and disappear into nothingness like everyone else who had died during the war. It was about as much of a foregone conclusion as it sounded. And he would be lying if he said that he wasn't at least tempted by the thought of being reborn into a new world where being "Uchiha Sasuke" didn't mean anything, where he could be just another person in a crowd.

"What about the language? I can understand what you're saying right now, but will I be able to understand the people of your world?" he asked with curiosity.

"You will," Eris said quickly with an affirmative nod of her head. "Upon your transfer, your brain will be overloaded with information about how to speak, write and read the languages of our world as if it was your own."

For a moment, the girl seemed to hesitate whether or not to bring up what she was going to say next, but a quick look into Sasuke's eyes let her know that she wouldn't be able to lie to him and that she should just tell him. "There have been occasions when an individual's brain hasn't been able to handle the influx of information and have... uh, gone 'poof', b-but I'm-sure-that-won't-be-a-problem-for-you!"

She said the last part very quickly before looking away from him, refusing to meet his eyes. Instinctively, Sasuke wanted to question exactly what she meant by 'gone poof' but instead, he just shook his head and let the matter drop. It didn't really matter what it meant. He was already dead, and if he wasn't going to accept her offer to be reborn into her world, he would just fade into nothingness anyway so it wasn't like he had much of anything that he could lose to start with. Instead, he moved on to the next thing on his mind.

"What about my chakra and all my jutsu?"

Discreetly letting out a sigh of relief that he hadn't questioned her further about the topic, Eris turned back to face the shinobi. "Well, we don't have chakra in our world, but we do have a similar concept called 'mana'. When your body gets translated to fit in our world, your chakra should be replaced by equal amounts of mana. Similarly, you should be able to cast any of your jutsu as usual by using your mana as a source."

Here, Eris made a pause in her monologue to make sure that Sasuke was still following. And while he was a bit curious about how this 'mana' was different from the chakra that they had in his world, he signaled for her to continue. It didn't sound like it would be a problem, and as long as it didn't hinder him in his quest to defeat the Demon King, he didn't really care too much about it. He had never been one to overthink things during his life, so why start in the afterlife?

"That, coincidently, lead us nicely into another topic that we need to discuss," Eris said cheerfully, as she reached behind her back and produced what appeared to be a large catalog of some kind seemingly out of thin air. "Every adventurer who is chosen from another world to take on the quest to beat the Demon King is allowed to bring one item of their choosing with them to our world. It can be an item from your world that you're particularly fond of, or you could choose an item or a skill from our suggestions in this catalog."

That caused Sasuke to blink. He had assumed that he would just be thrown headfirst into this new world with nothing but his wits and the clothes currently on his person, but upon second thoughts it did make sense that the gods would want to increase the chance that someone they sent to defeat the Demon King would be successful. Accepting the large catalog without a word, he flipped it open and began to quickly skim through the index that covered the book's contents.

His first thought was the bring along his Sword of Kusanagi that he had lost during Team Seven's battle with Ootsutsuki Kaguya. It had served him well for years and had become such an integral part of his fighting style that he had admittedly felt a bit naked facing Naruto without it during their final battle at the Valley of the End. However, he quickly dismissed the thought. While it had undoubtedly been a very well made sword, the only reason he wanted that specific sword was for sentimental reasons, and he was certain he would be able to replace it without much trouble once he was in the new world.

For a brief moment, he considered whether there was anything in Eris' catalog that could possibly enhance his combat abilities in any useful way before his mind zoned in on a specific part of the goddess' previous statement.

"Hey, what do you mean when you say 'translated'?" he said as he looked up to meet the white-haired girl's eyes.

Eris blinked in surprise, apparently not having expected this question, but answered anyway. "In order for you to be reborn into our world, we will have to create an entirely new body for you, since your old body is still left in your world. In order to accomplish that, a new body will be created based on your genetic code, adapted to live in our world to make sure there are no unfortunate repercussions."

That made sense. However, that was also what he had been worried about.

"What about modifications that have been made to my old body during my life?"

While the addition of the Sage of the Six Path's chakra was the most recent on the long list of modifications that had been done to his old body, that list also included things like his immunity to poison that Orochimaru and Kabuto had bestowed upon him and, most importantly, the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan that he had gained from the transplantation of his brother's eyes.

"Eh, I'm not entirely certain how that would work, to be honest." Eris put a finger to her chin in thought. "If the modifications didn't change your genetics, then I would guess that they wouldn't be transferred to your new body. Was there anything in particular that you were thinking about?"

Despite his reluctance to share such sensitive information about his clan with someone who wasn't a part of it, Sasuke only hesitated for a moment before he began to explain why this was such a big deal to him. If he were to start a new life in this world, he needed to know if his inherent abilities would cause an issue. The Mangekyo Sharingan itself was a natural genetic occurrence in an Uchiha who had experienced a certain level of mental stress, as had been explained to him by Senju Tobirama, the Second Hokage, towards the end of the war, so he felt pretty certain that he would retain that ability, regardless of what body he was in. The Eternal Mangekyo, however, had a physical requirement that had to be met for it to exist, namely the Sharingan of an Uchiha other than himself. As such, if he were to lose his brother's eyes, then he would eventually go blind.

"O-oh, erm... I see." Eris said after he had explained the secret of the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan to her. She seemed slightly disturbed by the thought of someone taking their sibling or parent's eyes for their own gain, but tried to not show him how much the thought disturbed her. Keyword 'tried'. "W-well, I'd guess that you would lose your Eternal... what was it called? 'Manicure Sharing-Gun?' once you were reborn in our world since you wouldn't have your brother's eyes."

Hearing her butcher his clan's ability caused Sasuke's left eye to twitch dangerously. Even Naruto hadn't managed to mess up any of the Uchiha Clan's ability names that badly, and he had been known for not being too quick on the uptake, especially when they were kids.

"Well then," he said, coughing loudly into his hand in an attempt to ignore the girl's inability to pronounce his clan ability's name correctly. "I don't wanna go blind after a few months in this new world, so I guess that settles it. The 'item' I choose to bring with me to your world is the eyes of my brother, Uchiha Itachi."

Eris actually had the decency to look embarrassed at having mispronounced the name of his ability, however, she quickly straightened out her features again and nodded in acceptance of his request.

"Very well, then your request shall be granted," she said as she once again reached behind her back and produced an item seemingly out of nowhere, this time a small pouch containing a small number of coins if the clinking sound was anything to go by. "Then, unless you have any more questions, the only thing left to do is to give you this gold to spend as you would like, and send you on your way."

Absentmindedly accepting the coin purse from the Goddess of Fortune, Sasuke wracked his brain for anything else he wanted to ask before he left on this new adventure.

"I think I'll be fine. Whatever happens, I'll deal with it when it comes up," he said, feeling a strange tugging at his lips as he realized how much like his rival he sounded when he said it.

As if his words had been a trigger, a magical emblem appeared underneath his feet the moment he finished speaking. The bluish glow that emanated from the runes that were etched around the outer part of the circle almost blinded him, and he instinctively reached up to shield his eyes from the light. A second later, he felt his feet leave the ground.

"Then I wish you good luck on your quest, Sasuke." Eris' voice sounded from somewhere below him, causing Sasuke to look down toward the white and blue figure that was steadily growing smaller the higher into the air he floated. "Oh, and if you do manage to defeat the Demon King, the gods will reward you by granting you a wish of your choosing!"

The surprise from that last tidbit of information somehow managed to cause Sasuke to stumble in mid-air.

"How come you've waited this long to tell me that?!" he called back to the goddess who was waving innocently towards him and smiling mischievously.

Before the goddess could answer though, another magical emblem appeared a few feet above his head, this one presumably acting as the portal that would send him to Eris' world. With one last glance towards the still grinning goddess, Sasuke sighed and turned his attention towards the emblem, towards his future. In the end, it didn't matter that she hadn't told him about the possible reward for defeating the Demon King; he had chosen to take on the quest anyway. Had that been the whole point of not mentioning it until he had already been sent on his way? He didn't know, but the thought of it caused the shinobi to smile. As whimsical as Eris had been, she clearly wasn't one he should underestimate if they ever met again.

 **-X-X-X-X-X-**

Once the light had faded, Sasuke found himself laying on his back in a field. Sitting up and looking around, his still somewhat fuzzy mind worked overdrive to take in every part of this new world, every sound and every sensation of the world that would be his home for at least the foreseeable future. In the distance, he could see what appeared to be a city of some kind, surrounded by a large stone wall that was probably meant to protect it from whatever animals prowled these lands, as well as the Demon King's army if they ever came knocking.

Glancing over his shoulder, he found that he was sitting underneath one of the many trees that were scattered across the landscape that surrounded the town. Unlike the humongous trees that he was used to from his own world, however, these trees were only a few meters high at most. And unlike the bumpy terrain of the Elemental Nations, the area surrounding the city was almost completely flat. To Sasuke, who had never seen such a large area as flat as these plains, it felt almost unnatural.

"Well, this really is another world, huh?" he said aloud, looking down at his hand and flexing it to try and determine whether his physical abilities had been affected by the 'translation' that Eris had been talking about. From what he could tell, this new body was in good shape. Not quite as good as he had been towards the end of the Fourth Great Shinobi War, but definitely good enough that he wouldn't have to worry about overexerting it by being reckless during his first few days adapting to this new world. However, as he lifted his left hand to form a few hand seals to try casting a jutsu, his sharp eyes picked up on something else that was missing.

His summoning tattoo was gone.

Or more accurately, it had never been there, to begin with. If he was completely honest, the loss of it didn't bother him as much as it probably should have. While he had formed a mutual respect with Aoda, they didn't really share a close relationship like the one Naruto seemed to share with his toads. As for his hawk summons, the only time he had used them for anything other than transportation had been during his battle with Danzo, and he had gained other ways to increase his mobility since then so it shouldn't hamper him too much. However, that did remind him...

Not wasting another second, he rose to his feet and turned to face the city in the distance. He needed to find a water source, or any other reflective surface to confirm that he still had the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan. Whether or not he still did would affect how reckless he could be with its' use. While he was confident in his abilities even without it, he had come to rely heavily on it to keep him and his allies alive during the war so if he didn't have the Eternal version anymore, he would need to get used to not using it unless absolutely necessary again.

With that thought in mind, he set off on a brisk walk towards the city in the distance. First off, he would determine whether he still had the Eternal Mangekyo, and then he would try to gather some information about his current whereabouts and decide what course of action to take from there.

However, he had barely been walking for more than a few minutes when his ears picked up a low rumbling sound from... somewhere below him? His mind instantly recalling Kakashi's 'test' of Team Seven from three years earlier (had it really only been three years since that day?), he dashed forward just in time to avoid being swallowed by the large gaping maw that came bursting out of the ground where he had been standing just a second earlier.

With instincts honed from a year of nothing but moving from fight to fight, Sasuke twisted in mid-air and landed gracefully a few feet away from his enemy. Without even thinking twice about it, his eyes had changed from their usual onyx black color to the black and red of his Mangekyo Sharingan (whichever form of it he currently had) and he was already half-way through a cast of Amaterasu before he caught himself.

"Tch," he gritted his teeth in annoyance as he forced himself to dispel the jutsu before it was cast. He had to restrain that reflex for now, just in case he really had lost his Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan.

Taking a deep breath to calm himself down, he turned his attention back towards whatever it was that had attacked him... and did a double take. Staring him down from where he had been standing just a few seconds earlier was a giant toad, not too dissimilar to the ones that Naruto had been able to summon. The irony of the situation wasn't lost on him.

' _Is this some kind of joke by the gods?_ ' he thought as he watched in disbelief as the giant toad leaned down and sprang forward towards him once more, giant mouth open to swallow him whole.

Waiting until just a moment before the toad came down on him, Sasuke leaped into the air and somersaulted over the toad's open maw, his hands quickly going through the familiar hand seals of his clan's signature jutsu.

" _ **Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!**_ " he shouted as he felt the familiar rush of heat traveling from his lungs to his mouth before being exhaled in the form of a huge fireball that nailed the surprised toad in between the eyes.

As the flames spread to swallow the amphibian whole, Sasuke landed a few meters away. That had been almost too easy. He was pretty sure that even Killer Bee in his full Tailed Beast State had been faster than this toad. If this was the kind of monsters he would be facing from now on, perhaps he wouldn't even need the Mangekyo Sharingan...

His thoughts process was interrupted as without warning, the flames parted when the toad came flying towards him again, seemingly completely unharmed by his attack. Caught off guard by the large amphibian, Sasuke barely had enough time to dodge to the side. Just barely rolling out of the way of the large monster, he could feel the ground shake beneath his feet when the green giant landed just half a meter away from him.

Hoping to buy some time to regain his footing, his hand reached for the pouch that was tied to his belt to throw some shuriken at the toad... only to realize that the only thing that was currently tied to his belt was the coin purse that Eris had given him before he had departed for this world. A quick glance towards his wrists told him that the storage seals that he usually had prepared in case he ever ran out of shuriken had also been left behind when his body was translated. He didn't have any equipment on him at all!

Cursing his lack of attention earlier when he had been checking himself over, he desperately tried putting some distance between himself and his opponent, but the toad was surprisingly nimble for its' size. Oh, how his thoughts from earlier had come back to bite him in the ass!

" _ **Fire Style: Great Dragon Flame Jutsu!**_ " he shouted as he locked his hands in the Tiger Seal and sent another blast of flames towards the approaching amphibian, this one shaped like the head of a dragon. However, just like the fireball before it, the Dragon Flame Jutsu didn't even seem to slow it down, forcing Sasuke to once again throw himself on the ground to avoid getting flattened by a giant webbed hand.

Coming to a stop just below the belly of the beast, Sasuke growled in frustration and quickly went through another set of hand seals.

" _ **Chidori Sharp Spear!**_ "

With the sound of a thousand chirping birds, a sphere of pure lightning materialized in his hand before extending itself in a straight line and piercing through the amphibian's belly, eventually emerging through its' back. When the toad began to stagger and let out a pained croak from the attack, Sasuke's lips were drawn out into a vicious smirk as he used the blade created from his jutsu to cleave the amphibian cleanly in two halves.

His smirk quickly disappeared as the two halves of the toad fell apart and drenched him in toad innards, ruining his only set of clothes in this world. Even the usually stoic Uchiha Sasuke couldn't keep from letting out a disgusted yelp at his current predicament. There wasn't even that much blood or guts, that stuff he could handle. Had done, many times in the past. It was just... slime. Icky, sticky and smelly _slime_.

Covering his nose in an attempt to keep himself from throwing up, he straightened up to leave the place as quickly as possible, only to find a frightening sight waiting for him. While he had been focused on the one toad that had attacked him, many more had apparently emerged from... somewhere, presumably from the ground like the one he had just fought off.

And now he was surrounded. toads in every color of the rainbow and every size imaginable between the size of his little toe and the Hokage Monument were starring him down with hungry looks in their eyes. There had to be at least 30 of them, just waiting to pounce on him. The sight caused his left eye to twitch dangerously, itching to just throw caution to the wind and fry them all up in black flames. Was this to be his atonement for the crimes he committed in his world? An endless amount of giant amphibians trying to eat him, trample him and cover him in slime?

As he fought to hold in a cry of despair, he could've sworn that he could hear Naruto laugh at him, all the way from the Elemental Nations.

* * *

 _"I can offer you a chance to redeem yourself."_

* * *

 **A/N:** _Greetings readers and fellow fanfiction authors! I haven't posted anything on this site for a long time now, and I really want to get back into the swing of things again. I've been struggling with most of my more serious projects (for over two years now) because I feel like they deserve more than I can currently offer them with my rusty writing, and have therefore decided to instead post something less serious to flex my writing muscles again. I'm not used to writing comedy though, so we'll see how well this goes... if any of you know me from any of my previous fics, then you know they're usually a bit more on the serious side, so this will be a completely new experience for me._

 _On that note, I appreciate any feedback you can give me to improve my writing, even the negative one. Perhaps especially the negative one. I can't improve if I never get told what I need to improve on._

 _On the subject of the fic itself, there are a few things I want to make clear. I haven't read the Konosuba light novels or manga, so anything I know from events in them I've learned through secondary sources like the Wikia or other fanfics. If you know somewhere I can get my hands on them without spending too much money on it (I'm still a poor college student), I would be thankful._

 _Next up, I want to acknowledge the fact that the Sasuke who appears in this story is and probably always will be a little bit OOC. In fact, that will probably be true for most of the characters, though I will do my best to keep them at least somewhat similar to their canon counterparts._

 _The last thing I want to cover is the fact that this chapter hasn't been proofread by anyone other than myself. I use Grammarly to try and avoid spelling and grammar errors, but it isn't a failsafe so some of the grammar may still be a bit iffy. If you find any large blunders on my part, then I'd appreciate if you could tell me so I can fix them. Now with all that being said, I hope you enjoy the story! I don't have a set update schedule, nor do I know where I want the story to go, but I'm sure we can work something out! Have a good day!_


	2. Starting Life in this Wonderful World

**A/N:** _Just wanted to quickly mention that I have updated the first chapter and replaced all instances of the word "frog" with the word "toad". I originally referred to them as giant frogs because I was certain that they had been called that in the anime, but rewatching the first episode quickly proved me wrong. Now without further ado, here's the next chapter._

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto or Konosuba. If I did, Satou Kazuma would've been named Mochizuki Touya, and had brought a smartphone with him to the new world.

* * *

 **Chapter II:** Starting life in this wonderful world

Axel, also known across the lands as the Town of New Beginnings, was a peaceful city at the very edge of the land that was being threatened by the Demon King's army. Surrounded by nothing but forests, lakes, and fields for at least a few miles, it wasn't immediately threatened by any of the realm's more dangerous monsters. It was the optimal place for beginner adventurers to start their quest for glory, hence the town's moniker.

However, one of the world's newest residents hadn't received quite as nice a welcome as most others.

" _ **Chidori Stream!**_ "

With an exhausted shout, Sasuke gathered the last of his mana in his chest and released it, catching the three last toads in his jutsu. As soon as the annoying amphibians fell to the ground, the raven-haired boy leaned forward and rested his hands against his knees, panting from exhaustion. He had lost count of how long he had been fighting now, but the sun had already begun to set behind the walls of the city. While he had gotten progressively closer to the city as his struggle against the giant toads had continued, he still had at least 20 minutes left to walk before he reached the gates, probably even longer than that in his current state.

It had taken a few toads, but he had eventually realized that it was only his Fire Style jutsu that had been ineffective against them, while his Lightning Style appeared to take them out in one shot. As soon as he picked up on that, dealing with them had become a lot easier, but it had done nothing to make it any less tedious. It had been a long time since he had been forced to rely on just his basic jutsu in such a long fight. Now that he thought about it, he had relied on either the Mangekyo Sharingan or the Cursed Seal of Heaven in nearly every fight he had taken part in since he had left Konoha to join Orochimaru all those years ago...

Taking a deep breath, he straightened himself up and made a feeble attempt to wipe the worst of the toad slime off of himself. As tempting as it was to take a few minutes to rest, he really wanted to get to the city before nightfall. Not only was he in desperate need of a bath, but he didn't want to stick around in case any more toads showed up. Spurred on by his desire to not lay eyes on another amphibian for at least another week in this world, he once more began making his way towards the city in the distance.

Thankfully, he wasn't ambushed by anything else on his trek to the city and reached the city gates within half an hour. The guards stationed at the gates only gave him a passing glance before returning to their mundane conversation. Their complete dismissal of his less than pleasant state caused Sasuke to question whether teenagers covered in toad slime was a common sight in this world... and the implications didn't reassure him, at all.

"You there," he said as he walked up to the guards. "I'm new in town. Where do I find the closest bathhouse?"

One of the guards, the one who had his back turned towards Sasuke, let out an annoyed grunt at being interrupted in the middle of their oh so important conversation, and turned to look down at Sasuke. "Watch your attitude around your elders, kid. Didn't your mommy teach you any manners?"

The way that the annoyed guard was looking at him made Sasuke's right hand involuntarily twitch towards where his scabbard would've usually been. He really wasn't in the mood for this.

"She didn't. Now, are you gonna answer my question or not?" he bit back, glaring up at the taller man.

"Hmph," the annoyed guard snorted. "Well, I got no obligation to tell you anything, you brat. I only get paid to watch the plains and ensure that no one undesirable enters the city, so get lost, unless you want to be included amongst the latter."

And with that, the man turned back to his fellow guard, apparently thinking the conversation over. For a brief moment, Sasuke was tempted to just beat the answer out of him but quickly thought better of it. Landing himself on the most wanted list before he even entered his first city in this new world wouldn't be beneficial to him in any way. Instead, he simply stepped closer and poked the guard on his shoulder.

"Oi," the guard rumbled in annoyance. "I told you to get lost, you little shi-."

The moment the guard's eyes lowered to meet Sasuke, he was met by a pair of glowing red irises, complete with three tomoe spinning around the center of each eye; the Sharingan.

" _ **Demon Illusion: Shackle Stakes.**_ " Sasuke hissed ominously, as the guard broke out in a cold sweat. A few seconds later, the uncooperative guard fell to his knees, panting heavily, his eyes wide in terror.

"Hey, Mu?" the other guard spoke up in shock at this strange turn of events as he grabbed his friend by the shoulders. "Mukankei! What happened?!"

The incapacitated guard didn't respond to his friend, his eyes glued to the raven-haired boy who had inspired such terror in him. Although he wouldn't admit it out loud, Sasuke was impressed that the guard, Mukankei apparently, hadn't screamed when the illusory stakes had pierced his body and shackled him to the ground.

"W- who are you...?" the immobilized guard managed to stutter. " _What..._ are you?"

"Uchiha Sasuke," Sasuke said, doing his best to look as intimidating as he could, something that was made quite hard by the fact that he was a good head shorter than the two men he was trying to intimidate and the fact that he was still drenched in toad slime. "Now, we were talking about the city's bathhouse...?"

Reminded of what Sasuke had been asking for, Mukankei's eyes widened considerably and he nodded his head rapidly. "R-right. Y-you'll find it in the north-eastern part of the city! J-just walk straight down the main road and take a left when you reach the Eris church. From there you should be able to see it!"

Ah, so the girl he had met in his afterlife really was viewed as a goddess in this world. And she had an entire church dedicated to her in this town. Wonderful.

"Now that wasn't so hard, was it?" Sasuke said as he allowed the Genjutsu to fade away. Without another word, he turned around and entered the city, leaving the two terrified guards at the gate.

As he entered the city, the first thing he noticed was that there was an unusual amount of people still moving about in the streets, despite the late hour. Merchants had just about begun to close their stalls for the day, mothers were calling to their children that dinner was ready and there was a steady line of people moving towards a building at the end of one of the side streets that Sasuke assumed was the local bar or tavern, whatever they called it in this world.

At the end of what appeared to be the main street, Sasuke spotted a tall building that could only be the church he was looking for. Taking aim towards it, he began moving down the street while he took note of how unexpectedly normal and mundane the people of this town were behaving. Was this world really at the brink of a great crisis? Watching the children playing in the street or hiding from their mothers, he found that hard to believe...

Suddenly, every muscle in his body tensed up as the familiar sensation of being watched by someone crept up his spine. Looking around and extending his senses, his limited sensory abilities managed to pick up on a somewhat familiar presence. Turning in the general direction of presence, he noticed that it had begun to move away from him the moment he had stopped to search for it.

' _Oh no, you don't!_ ' Sasuke thought as he dashed off towards a nearby alleyway in the direction of the familiar presence, nearly running over a brown-haired boy in the process. Tuning out the boy's indignant shout, he managed to zero in on the aura just as he spotted a figure wearing a green cloth enter the alleyway he was aiming towards.

Weaving in and out between the people who were still moving about, Sasuke reached the alley in just a few seconds and turned the corner in time to see the green-clothed figure disappear over the rooftop. Focusing what little mana he had left after his struggle with the toads earlier that day, Sasuke ran towards the wall at the other end of the alley...

And slipped on the wall the moment he put his foot on it.

With a cry of surprise over the fact that his feet hadn't attached themselves to the wall like he had expected them to, Sasuke tumbled to the ground, landing ungracefully in a pile of mud that further sullied his only pair of clothes in this world. Spitting and letting out a long string of curses, he stumbled back onto his feet and glared at the wall just as the presence disappeared from his senses.

Like most shinobi who weren't specifically geared towards tracking, like Shino, Kiba or Karin, the range of Sasuke's sensory abilities didn't extend beyond about 10 to 15 meters at most, and that was when he was fully fit. Feeling the adrenaline fade from his system, he sighed as he realized that pursuing his target would be next to impossible at this rate.

Casting one last glance towards the rooftop where the girl had disappeared, he turned around and exited the alley to resume his walk towards the bathhouse with renewed necessity. However, even as he finally reached the bathhouse and entered it to clean himself up, he couldn't help but wonder.

 _Why was she here?_

 **-X-X-X-X-X-**

It was about 40 minutes later that Sasuke entered the local tavern, wearing a simple white shirt along with a pair of plain brown loose-fitting pants. His gray Uchiha shirt, dark blue shinobi pants and rope belt had been messed up bad enough that he'd had to leave them at a local washhouse to get them cleaned up overnight. The old lady at the counter had told him to come back tomorrow morning to pick them up.

In the meantime, he had decided to get himself something to eat, and hopefully get a better grip on the situation in this world he now found himself in. However, barely had he entered the tavern before someone called out to him.

"Oi!" a gruff voice sounded from somewhere around 2 o'clock from him. Turning towards the voice, his vision zeroed in on a large bulky man wearing little more than a metal plate and a pair of metal pauldrons on his upper body, who was looking at him over his shoulder. "Never seen you around these parts before. New in town?"

Hesitating for only a brief moment, Sasuke did his best to relax and moved over towards the older man. If he was to start gathering information about this new world, this man was as good a place to start as any, and even though the man looked strong on the outside, he doubted he would be able to withstand an assault on his mind if he tried anything funny. If the guard from earlier had been any indication, Genjutsu or anything like it wasn't common in this world.

"Pretty much," he said as he came to a stop in front of the bulky man. "Got into town a little less than an hour ago. I'm looking for information about the Demon King. Know anything?"

For a moment, the man just stared him up and down, probably trying to judge his character. It took everything he had for Sasuke to keep himself from sinking into a defensive stance. Without his weapons or even his usual clothes, he didn't exactly look too imposing. However, the man apparently liked what he had seen, because his face twisted into an ugly grin.

"That so huh, you reckless little punk?" he said as he turned around and lifted his tankard. "Well, you've come to the right place then. Most novice adventurers start their journey to defeat the Demon King here in Axel. Welcome to the gates of hell!"

Upon being called a novice adventurer, Sasuke felt his left eye twitch in annoyance again. For heaven's sake, he had survived a war that had almost destroyed his entire world and had defeated men who had the power to level a mountain at their fingertips! He was about as much a novice in battle as Naruto was a scholar and Kakashi was punctual. However, not wanting to cause a scene during his first evening in town, he tried to focus on the fact that he now knew the name of the city he was currently residing in; Axel.

"Eh, thanks?" he said tentatively, not really sure how he was supposed to respond to _that_.

"Anyway," the shirtless man said with a grin as he lowered his tankard back to the table. "The Adventurer's Guild Registration Desk is over there. If you're looking to take on the Demon King, I suggest you sign up with them. They are the ones that handle all the mission requests in the vicinity, and every adventurer needs experience if they wish to grow stronger."

' _Ah, so this 'Adventurer's Guild' have a system similar to the mission system we had back in Konoha?_ ' Sasuke thought nonplussed. Unwillingly, memories from his early days as a shinobi rose to the surface from the deepest parts of his mind where he had long since buried them. Memories of being stuck painting fences, weeding gardens and hunting the Daimyo's wife's cat half-way across the Land of Fire. Did this land have a daimyo? Did that daimyo have a wife? Did that wife have a cat? Perhaps returning to his own world to fade into nothingness wouldn't have been so bad...

"Oi! You still with us?" the voice of the shirtless man brought Sasuke back to the present and thankfully buried the memories of the D-Rank missions from his genin days once more. Come to think of it, wasn't he still technically a genin? Eh, no matter.

"Sorry, just dealing with some unpleasant memories," Sasuke said as he straightened up and turned to look towards the counter that the shirtless man had pointed towards. "So you're saying that I need to register myself over there if I want to become stronger?"

"Pretty much, yeah," the shirtless man confirmed. "If you really are a novice, you're probably still around level one so signing up with the guild to further increase your level would probably be in your best interest, but you don't have to. I'd tell you more, but Luna can probably explain it better anyway, so I'll let her do the talking. Good luck."

Before Sasuke could ask who this 'Luna' person was, the shirtless man had turned back to face the other people sitting at his table. Sasuke blinked at the sudden end to their conversation but decided that he probably wouldn't have gotten much more out of the man anyway, if he felt that this 'Luna' was better suited to explaining how the guild worked to him. Figuring that Luna probably was a member of the guild, the raven-haired boy made his way over to the counter that the man had pointed him towards.

"Welcome to Axel's Adventurer Guild," the woman at the counter welcomed him when he arrived. "How may I help you?"

The woman had to be in her early twenties, with a busty figure and wavy blonde hair framing a friendly and welcoming face, the rest of which had been tied into a tight bun behind her head. She wore what appeared to be the standard outfit for workers at the tavern, although some of her... _assets_ appeared to be staging an escape attempt from her choice of attire.

"Are you Luna?" Sasuke went straight to the point. He had never been one to beat around the bush, and he didn't feel like changing that habit right now. Judging by the barely noticeable frown that spread over the woman's face at his choice of words, she didn't quite agree with his decision. She remained professional, however, and simply offered a cautious nod in return. "Good, someone told me I should talk to you. I want to know more about the Adventurer's Guild and how joining it would benefit me in any way."

While he could tell from the look in her eyes that she still didn't appreciate his manners (or lack thereof), she didn't push the matter and simply launched into an explanation of what the guild could offer him as a novice adventurer. Simple and straight to the point; Sasuke could appreciate that.

"By joining the Adventurer's Guild, you will be allowed to take on quests from our clients in order to level up faster and gain more experience as an adventurer. You will also receive payment for every completed quest and will be able to use our Trading Agency to buy and sell goods of all kinds, raw materials as well as finished products. You will also be given a free Adventurer's Card to keep track of your quests, skills, stats, and level. If you lose your initial card, you will be able to buy a new one, but you will have to pay a hefty price for any replacements so try not to lose it."

Here, Sasuke raised a hand to signal that he had a question. With practiced ease, Luna stopped mid-way through her explanation and signaled for him to ask away, her face softening just a bit as she did so.

"Why is my level important? I have been doing just fine without one so far," he asked, honestly curious about the answer.

Apparently, why a level was important was common knowledge in this world, because the receptionist blinked in surprise and tilted her head to the side as if she didn't understand what he was asking.

"Everyone in the world has a level, farmers and peasants as well as the Demon King himself. Just because it isn't shown anywhere doesn't mean it isn't there," she said as she reached underneath her counter and produced a blank card that Sasuke assumed was one of the Adventurer's Cards she had mentioned earlier. "Every being starts at level one the moment they enter this world and will level up as they complete quests or kill monsters."

' _So I have probably leveled up once or twice since I first came here without knowing it._ ' Sasuke thought to himself as he remembered the number of giant toads he had killed since arriving in this world.

"The higher your level is, the more skill points you'll earn and by extension, the more skills you'll be able to learn," Luna went on to explain. "There are also certain skills that you have to be a specific level to learn, or else your body won't be able to handle it. Similarly, there are some skills that require a specific stat to have reached a certain point before you can learn it, or you won't be able to perform it anyway."

As Luna went on to explain the importance of skills, stats, and level in more detail, Sasuke couldn't help but wonder why Eris hadn't told him any of the stuff he was learning about. The more Luna spoke, the more obvious it became to him that he wouldn't be able to apply logic he had learned in his own world to this world. Apparently here, people didn't learn new skills or whatever this world's equivalent of jutsu was by studying and working hard, but by spending enough skill points on their Adventurer's Card, and they would then instantly learn the skill.

"Now, do you have any more questions before we proceed?" Luna asked as she finished explaining the class System to him, and how it would affect his growth and combat prowess.

When Sasuke shook his head, the receptionist took the Adventurer's Card she had used to show Sasuke how everything worked and placed it in a strange looking device that had been placed to the right of the counter, before she motioned for him to place his hand above the device.

"This device will scan you to determine your current stats and level, and once we know that we can pick out a class that will suit you," she explained, her earlier resentment of him completely gone.

Seeing her expectant look, Sasuke had half a mind to tell her that he had never said that he was going to join the guild but quickly dismissed the thought. If her earlier explanation had been correct, then he would need to join the guild sooner or later if he wanted to grow stronger, and he could probably make use of the Trading Agency to get ahold of a new sword as well. There really weren't any reasons for him to not join the guild right now.

With that thought in mind, he put his hand above the device and waited while the trinket scanned his palm and copied whatever it was it had found onto his Adventurer's Card, complete with a close-up of his face. How it had determined what his face looked like by scanning his palm, he would never know...

"Let's see... Uchiha Sasuke, huh?" Luna said as she removed the card from the strange device and glanced at it, letting out a surprised gasp. "Oh, you're already level 8? That's unexpected. I thought you said you were a novice?"

So he had gained 7 levels from fighting of those toads earlier? Well, there had been quite a lot of them...

"I had a bit of a run in with some amphibians on my way here," Sasuke said, his eyes narrowing slightly as he noticed that Luna's surprised gasp had gathered the attention of a few of the tavern's patrons. Didn't these people have anything better to do with their life than eavesdropping matters that were none of their business?

"Right..." Luna said with a frown, before turning back to study his Adventurer's Card once more. Once she did, her eyes widened to almost comedic proportions, and she let out another shocked gasp. If they hadn't already held the attention of every patron at the tavern, that probably would've done it. "W-what's up with these stats?! Aside from your Luck which is a bit below average, all of your stats are far above the average, even for more experienced adventurers!"

' _Can you please scream that a little higher? I don't think the entire town heard you._ ' Sasuke thought in annoyance as the entire tavern broke out in excited murmurs of varying sound levels.

He wasn't really sure what he had expected though. From what he had seen, the monsters in the area surrounding Axel weren't really anything that would pose a threat to even an average genin, much less a Kage-level shinobi like himself, so it would stand to reason that the average adventurer around these parts would be on a level comparable to the monsters they were fighting. He was a bit peeved that his Luck stat apparently was below average, but on the other hand, he couldn't exactly argue the point either. Looking back at his short but eventful life, he could admit that he'd had some really bad luck that would back up the low value of the stat.

"Another super rookie?"

"No way, that makes two in under a week!"

The whispers and murmurs surrounding them kept escalating in volume, but Sasuke simply took a deep breath and did his best to shut them out. He had dealt with this kind of attention since he was a mere 6 years old and had gotten the act of ignoring irrelevant people almost down to an art form. For now, he just needed to find out what he wanted to know from Luna and then he could leave this place.

"So what kind of class would you recommend I take?" he asked, completely tuning out the people who were screaming class suggestions at him in the background.

The blonde receptionist seemed to be a bit taken aback by his callous disregard for his apparent superiority but still managed to keep a somewhat straight face as she answered his question. "W-well, with stats like these you could probably pick any of the advanced classes and be perfectly fine. The only class I would recommend against would be the Merchant class, as it requires high amounts of Luck if you want to be successful, but aside from that you could be anything you want."

Well, that didn't help him at all. He didn't have the slightest idea of what the pros and cons were of any of the classes, and it didn't help that the other patrons were arguing in the background about which class would best suit him. Feeling his patience with the situation wearing thin, he reached out and swiped his Adventurer's Card from Luna's hands and rose to his feet.

"It's getting late, and I haven't had anything to eat for at least 20 hours now," he said as he put the card away in one of his pockets. "I don't have the slightest idea what class I want to go into. Is there any way I can read up on what classes are available overnight?"

The moment the words had left his lips, time almost seemed to slow down as the overexcited tavern patrons that had practically been flying at the prospect of another 'super rookie" signing up with the guild fell back to the floor, both figuratively and literally in some cases. Luna, however, didn't appear too put off by him postponing his class decision and simply reached behind the counter to produce a booklet.

"Oh, of course, you don't have to decide this very moment," she said gently. Was that a hint of disappointment he detected in her voice? "You can read up on the benefits and drawbacks of each of the classes in this booklet, though I'd advise you to choose one of the advanced classes. With stats like yours, you likely wouldn't gain anything by going into a low tier class, and most of their skills can still be learned by advanced classes in the same category."

Ignoring the patrons that were loudly protesting against him postponing his class choice, Sasuke accepted the booklet and, in a rare display of gratitude, he offered the receptionist a rare smile. That smile quickly evaporated the moment he turned around to face the gathered mob of people who were still crying out for him to just pick a class and roll with it.

"Don't you have anything better to do? Get lost!" Sasuke said as he projected the most intimidating glare he could. If looks could kill, he would've just made the most wanted list for mass genocide.

 **-X-X-X-X-X-**

Later that night, Sasuke found himself staring at his own reflection, relieved to find his Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan staring back at him from the mirror. After getting something to eat, he had decided to simply rent a room at the tavern and spend the night reading up on the different classes he could choose from, so he could be out early tomorrow morning and start on his quest to defeat the Demon King.

' _Good to see that Eris at least kept her word._ ' he thought as he deactivated his Kekkei Genkai and left the bathroom.

Without thinking much about it, he threw himself down on top of the covers in his bed and grabbed the booklet that he had left on his bedside table. He had skimmed through it a little bit while he had his dinner, and something he had learned that Luna had failed to mention to him was that any skill he learned from an advanced class would require him to be wielding a weapon compatible with that class for him to be able to cast it. This kind of information was exactly why he had wanted to postpone his decision until he knew more about the class system itself. While Sasuke would be amongst the first to admit that he could be a bit reckless at times, there was a difference between being reckless and being stupid, and making an uninformed decision without even trying to learn more about it definitely counted towards the latter.

Aside from that, he had also learned that there was one class, the Adventurer class, that could potentially learn skills from all the other class trees, but it cost them more skill points to learn a skill than whatever other class had that same skill. On top of that, he would still be restricted by his weapon choice once he learned any skills from the advanced class trees, and thus would need to switch between different weapons if he wanted to use skills from two classes that didn't use the same weapon. The same would be true if he decided to first go into one class to pick up certain skills, only to later switch to another class for one reason or another.

The raven-haired boy let out a sigh as his eyes shifted back to the blood red irises of the Sharingan, before skimming over the information regarding the Arch Priest class. One of the major advantages that the Sharingan granted its' users was that no matter how brief the glance, it would always allow his mind to clearly register whatever it saw, so there was no reason for him to read it carefully.

Originally, he had considered going into a class that could offer an ability that he didn't already have, but doing so also meant that he would most likely need to learn how to use another type of weapon than a sword. Because of that, he was currently considering whether he should just go with the Swordmaster class, which was the class most focused on skills related to the sword, but he was uncertain whether it would benefit him to pick a class just because he already knew how to use its' weapon type efficiently.

On the other hand, choosing a class that used a different weapon type would arguably be more beneficial to him in the end, once he learned how to use it properly, but it would probably take a while for him to get used to a new weapon and adjust his fighting style accordingly. Just because the Sharingan would allow him to copy the movements and presumably the skills of whoever he saw using a weapon didn't mean that it would feel natural for him.

Then there were the magic-based classes, that used different weaponry to amplify their magical abilities, rather than to perform physical attacks. The Archwizard class was the most magically potent out of all the classes, but it didn't have any physical abilities to speak of. This wouldn't necessarily be a problem for Sasuke, as he was plenty durable on his own already, but the booklet also mentioned that most of the Archwizard skills were quite draining on the user's mana reserves. The class would undoubtedly increase his offensive capabilities, but it would also severely limit his use of jutsu like the Chidori and his Mangekyo Sharingan abilities, all of which were quite demanding on his mana pool already.

And he would need to carry around a stick. A large, cumbersome, wooden stick.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Crusader class would increase his defensive capabilities, and it had the added bonus of being able to use a sword (along with the option of learning how to use a lance). However, most of their skills were aimed towards drawing and holding what the booklet referred to as "aggro", which apparently meant drawing and keeping the attention of monsters around him. As a shinobi, that went against everything that he had ever been taught. Even at the Konoha Shinobi Academy, they had preached that a shinobi should hide in the shadows and wait for the opportune moment to strike (even though the majority of his generation appeared to have forgotten that lecture).

Turning another page in the booklet, Sasuke found himself staring at a page detailing the capabilities of a sword-wielding class called a Ghostblade. Unlike the more offensively oriented Swordmaster class, the Ghostblade apparently strived for a balance between offensive ability and supporting their party members through various 'buffs', which Sasuke had learned from the page about the Arch Priest referred to skills that boosted the power of the user and/or people around them for a limited amount of time.

As his gaze locked onto the words "party members", Sasuke couldn't help but frown as he realized that he hadn't even considered whether or not he would work on his own, or gather a few people to help him on his quest like he had done with Taka. All throughout the Elemental Nations, it had been standard protocol to always move in groups of four, and Sasuke knew from experience that it was beneficial to have team members with different skillsets to his own. Even the Akatsuki had typically worked in pairs that complemented each other, that's why it had been so difficult to deal with them. As far as he knew, whenever an Akatsuki member had been taken out, they had been separated from their partner.

Like Orochimaru had been. Like Deidara had been. Like _Itachi_ had been...

" _I'm sorry, Sasuke. But this is it..._ "

For a brief moment, the thought of his brother stirred an irrational hope in Sasuke's chest, before it quickly flickered out as if it had never even been there. Without even thinking about what he was doing, the raven-haired boy lowered the booklet and looked up at the ceiling, the Sharingan fading from his eyes once more. It wouldn't happen. It _couldn't_ happen. Eris had told him that he was the first person from the Elemental Nations to be sent to this world. Itachi wasn't here. If he had been, then Kabuto wouldn't have been able to revive him to fight in the Fourth War.

He hadn't really thought much about his brother since the two had been separated again after defeating Kabuto. He hadn't really had the time to let his thoughts linger on anything other than how to beat whatever opponent came his way next. But there was nothing to keep his thoughts occupied right this moment, no imminent battle that required his attention. And with nothing else to occupy his thoughts, he couldn't help but wonder...

Why hadn't Itachi been offered the chance to come here? How come he was the one who was allowed to seek redemption in this world when his brother deserved that chance so much more than him? Itachi had sacrificed so much for the sake of others, to ensure that the inhabitants of Konoha would be able to rest securely in their beds at night, while Sasuke had never thought about anyone but himself up until the very end.

Even at the end.

Coming to this new world to defeat the Demon King had never been about saving the lives of innocent people or ridding the world of a great evil. It had only ever been about clearing his own name, in his own mind. The people he had left behind, the people whose opinion mattered to him, wouldn't even know about whatever he did in this world. As similar as his and Itachi's last moments had been, both of them dying in the hope that someone they cared about would earn recognition for ridding the world of them, they really had been as different as night and day.

Had he truly learned anything at all, even after all this time?

Suddenly, he felt extremely tired, as if all of the fighting he had done over the last 48 hours had finally caught up to him. Kabuto, Madara, Kaguya, Naruto and those annoying giant freaking toads. Now that he thought about it, it was a wonder that he hadn't collapsed from chakra or mana exhaustion yet. Letting out a tired sigh, he ungracefully dropped the booklet on the floor by his bed and closed his eyes.

Barely had the booklet settled on the floorboards before the sound of light snoring filled the room.

* * *

 _"Don't you have anything better to do? Get lost!"_

* * *

 **A/N:** _Really fast update this time, since college hasn't really picked up the pace yet and I was on a roll after having finally posted something on this site again. And the first real big problem has now shown itself: I really suck at writing dialogue-heavy chapters. I really feel like that sequence between Sasuke and Luna wasn't my best moment as a writer. Or was it? I'm open for opinions on this, and advice if you have any to give._

 _So, a few things about what actually happened in this chapter. For those who're curious about the name of that guard at the beginning, the word "Mukankei" is Japanese for "Irrelevant", if you are to believe Google Translate. And no, he's not canon to either of the fandoms._

 _Now, what class do you think Sasuke should be? My instinct was to go with Swordmaster, but then I began questioning whether or not that would really add anything to his skill set, and whether or not Sasuke would pick it just because he already knows how to use a sword, or if he would go with something else to try and expand his abilities a bit._

 _The Adventurer was, of course, an option as well, but in this story, that class is going to have some serious drawbacks. It doesn't make sense that a class that can learn literally any skill from any class would be considered "useless" unless it actually had some serious downsides. Kazuma will still be able to attain approximately the same skills as he did in canon, as none of them are weapon restricted, but I am hesitant whether I want Sasuke to go that route or not. Also since I have very limited knowledge of the Konosuba classes I have taken some inspiration from Quan Zhi Gao Shou, or "The King's Avatar". If you haven't watched it, I can really recommend it. It's great._

 _Anyway, I'll put up a poll on my profile page with whatever class options I am considering for Sasuke. Feel free to vote there, or by leaving a review. And as always, I am grateful for any feedback (except flames, but there is a difference between constructive feedback and mindless hate). The next chapter might take a little while longer, but it will come sooner or later. Hopefully sooner. I hope you all have a great day! :)_


	3. Indebted

**A/N:** _I want to issue a warning! This chapter may or may not contain an easter egg or two that the author put in for fun. Kudos to anyone who can spot them!_

 **Disclaimer:** If I owned the rights to either of these franchises, I wouldn't still be stuck in college.

* * *

 **Chapter III:** Indebted

By the time Sasuke awoke the following morning, the sun was already sitting high in the sky above the city. Its' rays were seeping in through the window and bathed the entire room he had rented in a warm, comfortable light. As the early morning hours passed by, the sun rays slowly crept across the room until eventually, they reached the bed where the raven-haired teen was still out cold.

The Last Uchiha let out a drowsy groan and tried to shield his eyes from the blinding light as his consciousness slowly returned to him. He had originally planned to be up and out of the tavern before it got too crowded, but his exhausted body had disagreed with him and he'd lacked the strength to really argue with it. While he'd been given a new body when he was sent to this world, his mind had still gone through 4 of the most intense fights he'd ever been in over the last 3 days with little to no rest in between. As much as he wanted to avoid the other patrons at the tavern, he really needed to take the time to recover from all the mental stress.

 _Knock, knock!_

And just like that, his relaxed state of mind was ruined. With a groan of annoyance, the teenager pushed himself to his feet and wobbled over towards the door while seriously considering whether or not he should incinerate whoever was on the other side with Amaterasu for disturbing his rest. Relaxation was something that didn't come easily to him, and he hadn't felt that relaxed in well over a year, so whoever was at the door better have a damn good reason for disturbing him.

As it would turn out, it was Luna, the receptionist from the Adventurer's Guild, who had seen fit to knock on his door and force him to drag himself out of bed. She had her hands clasped in front of herself, fiddling nervously with her thumbs when Sasuke opened the door to glare at her.

"What?" he growled with as much malice as he could muster.

Upon seeing the obvious look of discontent on his face, the blonde woman let out a gasp (she seemed to do that a lot around him) and actually took a step back from the door as if she had been burned. Maybe she really had been. Sasuke could've sworn that he felt his left eye itch upon laying eyes on her.

"Uhm, I'm sorry to disturb you, Sasuke," she said, still not meeting his eyes. "But amid all the excitement yesterday surrounding your registration at the guild, I forgot to ask you to pay the Registration Fee."

His already itchy left eye straight up twitched upon hearing her reason for disturbing him and he had to mentally restrain himself from frying her alive right then and there. A single stray thought and he could have her writhing in pain on the floor, covered by black flames. ' _Don't do it, Sasuke._ ' he mentally tried to berate himself. _'Frying an Adventurer's Guild employee is a sure way to land yourself on the most wanted list._ '

"How much is the fee?" he asked instead. "I have some spare coin, but I'm not really familiar with the currency used here."

Just like yesterday when he had asked about the importance of levels, she gave him _that look_ , letting him know that he had just asked something incredibly stupid that everyone in this world probably knew about. Some sharp corner of his mind let him know that her reaction indicated that they used the same currency in all or at least most parts of this world, but he was far too tired to care at this moment.

"You know what?" he interrupted before she could even begin to explain how the currency of this world worked. "Just come in and take a seat. I'll dig out my coin purse and you can take whatever coins you want from there. I don't care."

Without waiting for a reply, he turned around and walked back into the room. Barely a moment passed before the clicking sound of a pair of high-heeled boots let him know that Luna had entered after him, before closing the door. A few minutes later found the two sitting on the floor in the middle of the room with three different types of coins, as well as Sasuke's coin purse, between them.

"The currency in this land is called 'Eris', after Axel's patron deity, the Goddess of Fortune," Luna explained while Sasuke did his best to stifle a yawn. "There are four variations of coins currently in rotation; bronze, silver, gold, and mithril. The bronze coins," she pointed to the copper-coloured coin that had been put on the floor between them. "are the least valuable and is only worth 1 Eris. A silver coin, "she pointed at the corresponding coin. "is worth 29 bronze coins and are thus worth 29 Eris. The gold coins are worth 17 silver coins each, meaning in turn that they are worth 493 Eris each."

' _How is this currency practical in any way?!_ ' Sasuke wanted to scream, feeling the beginnings of a headache creeping up on him just from hearing Luna explain the currency to him. Instead, he settled for asking; "What about the mithril coins?"

They had been unable to find a mithril coin in either of their coin purses or pockets, so Sasuke assumed that they were the most valuable coins in use, but he wouldn't put it past this world to just have some obscure coin that was uncommon because only some people used them or something like that. He had al given up on applying any type of logic to this world.

"The mithril coins are the most valuable of all the coins, as each of them is worth 1 million Eris. They are quite rare though, as usually only the most wealthy of merchants or nobles have enough money to warrant their use, and even then they rarely make big enough purchases that they'd pay for anything with them." Luna finished with a smile, apparently having overcome her earlier anxiety about disturbing him.

Sasuke couldn't do anything but sigh at how this kind of thing appeared to just be natural to the receptionist. He had been in this world for less than 24 hours and he was already beginning to fear for his sanity. Even having to share a room with Naruto during the early Team Seven's missions outside of Konoha hadn't been this madness-inducing.

"Alright, so how much is the entrance fee?" he said, hoping to just get it over with and then be on his way. He didn't hold any illusion about going back to sleep after this awakening, so he might just as well get out and start his day.

Sadly, it was not meant to be. The way that Luna glanced at the contents of his coin purse, then to his face and then back down at the floor let him know that somehow, his day had just gotten a lot more complicating.

"Well, the entrance fee for a novice adventurer is 20,000 Eris," she said, reaching out and emptying his coin purse on the floor. "and well..."

"I don't have 20,000 Eris, do I?" Sasuke said with a loud groan, as he reached up to rub the bridge of his nose in annoyance. He didn't even need to see Luna's subtle but unmistakable nod of confirmation to know that was the case.

Raising his head and briefly activating his Sharingan as he glanced at the coins that were spread out on the floor between them, his mind quickly counted that he currently had approximately... 17,099 Eris? Or did he have 15,559 Eris? This currency was beyond confusing, but he had a sneaking suspicion that he'd had exactly 20,000 Eris when the goddess herself had given him the coin purse before he got reincarnated into this world.

"Is there some other way I can pay off the entrance fee then?" he asked as he lifted his gaze to rest on the blonde receptionist, who was once again doing her best to avoid looking at him. "I don't have anything other than this money and the clothes I arrived in."

 **-X-X-X-X-X-**

Approximately an hour later, Sasuke could be seen leaving the city of Axel and heading for the plains located a few miles to the south. After a short discussion about his options, he and Luna had reached an agreement. He would hand over 10,000 Eris on the spot and then complete a quest worth at least another 10,000 Eris with no payment to cover the remaining expenses. And as it turned out, there was a very simple "kill quest" that he could complete fairly quickly to do just that.

While he was walking the short distance towards the spot that, according to Luna, would be the best spot to hunt his current targets at, he found himself fiddling with the collar of his gray Uchiha shirt. The old lady at the washhouse where he had left his clothes overnight had given him an earful when he had shown up 5 hours later than he had said he would the previous evening. However, once that had been over and done with, she had remarked upon the unusual material that his clothes were made of, letting him know that they didn't have polyester in this world, or at least that it was hard to come by.

Sasuke had never been one for materialistic attachment, but the realization that he probably wouldn't be able to acquire another shirt like his current one if he ever lost or ruined it made him feel strangely possessive of it. The white shirt he had bought the other night while his other one was being cleaned up had felt foreign and had made him itch all over.

A familiar rumble from somewhere beneath his feet brought his attention back to the quest at hand, and he quickly realized that he had arrived at the right spot. Cracking his knuckles in preparation for a fight, he lazily jumped to the side just as the Giant Toad broke through the ground in the exact spot where he had been standing just a few seconds earlier.

Feeling his heartbeat quicken and his lips being drawn out into a savage grin, an otherworldly purple aura surrounded Sasuke before it solidified protectively around him into a giant ribcage, complete with a skeletal right arm that instantly shot forward and grabbed the giant toad with a clawed hand in a vice grip. The large amphibian let out a strangled croak as it was lifted into the air and held up in front of the teenager that it had planned to eat.

"You guys were quite the nuisance yesterday," Sasuke spoke as he raised his head to stare impassively at the terrified amphibian, revealing a pair of black irises with three intersecting red lines which in turn had a straight black pinwheel inside it; his Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan. "However, I've picked up on a few things since then. You'll find I won't make as easy a target for you as I did for your little friends yesterday."

And it was true. Not only had he ascertained that he wouldn't need to restrain himself in regards to his Mangekyo Sharingan abilities since then, but he had also been given some insightful information by Luna just before he had set off on this quest. Apparently, this world also had an Elemental Circle, similar to the one they'd had back in the Elemental Nations. The Giant Frogs that inhabited the plains surrounding Axel had a Water attribute, which was the reason why his Fire Style had proved ineffective against them the previous day.

Taking a deep breath, Sasuke gathered up a large amount of mana and released his Susanoo in its' full humanoid form, complete with its' signature bow. Without even moving an inch, he directed the ethereal warrior to pull its' arm back and launch the giant toad several feet into the air before taking aim towards it with its' bow and letting loose a pair of arrows that pierced through the creature's body as if it was made of butter.

' _And I only have to kill 5 of these to complete the quest?_ ' he thought with a sense of amusement as he watched the toad hit the ground with a loud thud. ' _This will be too easy._ '

Still, it was nice that something was finally going his way. After all the twists and turns that his life had taken since he had arrived in his world, it felt reassuring to know that at least he hadn't lost his touch his combat. Sure, he had lost a good few abilities when he had left his old body behind, but he was confident that he would be able to more than make up for it with whatever powers and skills he could pick up in this new world.

The sound of the Giant Toad hitting the ground must have alerted its' brethren to his presence in the area because just a few seconds later more amphibians in varying sizes and colors began emerging from the ground all over the field where he was standing. Twisting his head slightly to the side until he heard a satisfying pop and rolling his shoulder lazily, Sasuke had his Susanoo reload its' bow with another arrow and take aim towards the closest toad. The thought hadn't occurred to him the previous day, but if Naruto ever learned that the first thing Sasuke had done on his road towards redemption was to commit toad genocide, he probably would find a way to drag him back to the Elemental Nations just so that he could kill him again.

Good thing that Naruto would never know, then.

 **-X-X-X-X-X-**

"Eh? You're back already?"

It was a surprised Luna who met Sasuke at the counter in the Adventurer's Guild after he returned from his short trip to the Southern Plains. The look on her face clearly told him that she had expected him to be gone for much longer than he had, even though he had been gone for a good two hours. The thought that he probably could've made it back here within a single hour if he hadn't taken the time to walk between the town and the plains, or allowed himself to test the current limits of his Susanoo made Sasuke feel a lot smugger than it probably should have.

"It was just a bunch of overgrown amphibians," he stated with as much disinterest as he could muster up. "Did you really expect that it would take much longer for me to deal with them?"

Without waiting for an answer, the raven-haired boy reached into the pouch at his belt and produced his Adventurer's Card before handing it over to the receptionist, who accepted it with trembling hands. For a few seconds, the blonde woman stared at it intensely before she looked up to meet Sasuke's gaze with a blank expression on her face.

"Everything appears to be in order," she said with a tone that almost made it sound more like a question than a statement. "Congratulations on having completed your first quest as part of the Adventurer's Guild."

Despite himself, Sasuke found his lips being drawn out into another rare smile upon hearing that. This was it: the first step towards his redemption. For the first time since coming to this world, he felt like his course of action was clear to him. From here, he would adapt to the laws of this strange new world and grow stronger. Then, when he had grown strong enough, he would challenge this Demon King and redeem himself of all the crimes he had committed in his past life. Sooner or later, his name would be cleared.

' _It's always about you, isn't it?_ ' a traitorous voice that sounded suspiciously like Naruto whispered in the back of his head. ' _You never ever did anything unless it would benefit you and your goals. Always too focused on what was on the horizon to see that which was right in front of you._ '

For a brief second, the doubts that had circulated his mind the previous night rose unbidden from where he had buried them before he mentally steadied himself and pushed them to the back of his mind with a practiced ease. He was here on a mission, and he would see it through to the end. No doubts or lingering regrets would lead him astray.

"Speaking of, have you decided what class you want to be yet?" Luna's voice broke through Sasuke's inner monologue.

Right, he was still in the middle of a conversation. He could worry about his morals and the fact that he was hearing voices in his head later. Shaking his head to clear it of any distracting thoughts, his gaze fell on the tray that Luna had placed on the counter between them. It held his Adventurer's Card, as well as a small pile of gold coins.

"Not really," he said as he picked up his Adventurer's Card and looked it over for any change. Apparently, he had gained a level from completing the quest. "I was pretty tired yesterday, so I fell asleep pretty much as soon as my head hit the pillow. Now, what're these gold coins for? I thought we agreed that I would complete the quest without any payment?"

The question caused Luna to smile awkwardly toward him while she reached out and pushed the small pile of coins towards him. "Well, I know that we agreed on that, but I honestly only insisted on it because I was hoping that it would make you pick an easier quest. It isn't uncommon for novice adventurers to bite off more than they can chew, but seeing as you had no issue with the quest at all I feel like you should still have the excess money. It would feel unfair towards you if your first quest for the guild yielded nothing."

Well, she didn't have to tell him twice. After that fiasco with the entrance fee, he would be damned if he allowed himself to run out of money again, so it would be foolish of him to reject money when it was literally offered up to him on a silver tray. With almost impossibly swift hand movements, born from hours upon hours of practice weaving hand seals at high speeds, he reached out and swiped the gold coins from the tray, earning a pleased smile from Luna.

"So, I was thinking," the receptionist spoke up once Sasuke had put his coin purse back in his pocket. "since you are having trouble making up your mind about what class to choose, why don't you just go into the Adventurer class for now? You could try learning a few skills from some of the basic classes and then go into the corresponding advanced class once you have decided what you want to become."

Caught a bit off guard by the suggestion, Sasuke's usually stoic features were drawn out into a frown as he tried to recall what he had learned about the Adventurer class the night before. After taking a few seconds to consider it, he had to admit that the idea certainly held some merit. The Adventurer could learn skills from all other classes at the expense of having to spend double the amount of skill points that a specialized class would have to. That wouldn't be too much of an issue for Sasuke though, and by going Adventurer he would be able to measure a skill type's worth in actual combat, rather than just reading about it in a booklet.

"That's not a bad idea," he conceded, lifting a hand scratch his chin in thought while he glanced at his Adventurer's Card again, his gaze lingering at the number of skill points he currently had. "Sure, why not? I'll have to start somewhere, and Adventurer is as good a place as any."

That actually caused Luna's smile to widen. "Well in that case, would you please hand over your Adventurer's Card again?" she said as she held out a hand towards Sasuke. "I'll get you properly registered right away!"

Without another word, Sasuke handed the card back to the receptionist and watched as she put it back in the device they had used to identify his level and stats the previous evening. Once she was done registering him as an Adventurer, he asked her about where he would be able to find a sword of at least decent quality for a fair price.

"If you don't mind using a second-hand weapon, I would suggest putting up an entry of interest within the Guild's Trading Agency," she said and reached beneath the counter to produce what Sasuke assumed was a form for said agency. "But if you're looking for a new one, I'd suggest that you check out Lisbeth's Blacksmith Shop, just down the street from here. She's fairly new in the trade, but I've heard a lot of good things about her weapons from some of the adventurer's here at the guild."

For a moment, Sasuke glanced at the Trading Agency Form that Luna had placed between them, a dubious expression just barely noticeable on his features. While he had no intention of just settling for some rusty piece of iron that some no-name adventurer had outgrown, right now he just needed something to work with. Once he had gone on some more quests and earned some more money, he would be able to afford a more permanent solution. Still... to settle for just any rusty old metal stick...

"I think I'll check out the shop first," he said after a moment of consideration. "If I don't find anything satisfactory, I'll come back here and fill out one of those entries of interest."

 **-X-X-X-X-X-**

At the end of the street where the Adventurer's Guild was located lay a small, inconspicuous two-story house. Up until just a few months ago, the house had been home to an elderly man who had retired from the life of an adventurer after suffering an injury to one of his knees. However, after the previous owner had passed away without any heirs to inherit it, it had been purchased by a young girl who had since then turned it into one of the most successful businesses in the 'Town of Beginners'.

With so many adventurers living in Axel, novices as well as veterans, there was a constant demand for new weapons to be produced, and Lisbeth liked to think that she knew quite a bit about weapons. While her business may have had a bit of a rough start, she was determined not to let it get her down. One day, she was going to be the best blacksmith in the world, and be known as the woman who crafted the weapon that put an end to the Demon King's tyranny.

However, that day was still a long way off. Currently, the young blacksmith was working on sharpening an enchanted dagger as a favor for one of her favorite customers. While most adventurers were capable of performing basic weapon maintenance on their own, enchanted weapons required the rare Arcane Blacksmith skill and a very specific whetstone to be altered in any way, neither of which most adventurers wanted to spend money or skill points on.

Now normally, she would've charged a pretty hefty sum of Eris for this kind of service, but since the Thief who this dagger belonged to had been one of her first customers when she had first opened her shop and had remained a very good friend to her ever since, it didn't really feel right to charge her for something as simple as regular maintenance. Besides, it was late afternoon and there were no customers in the shop at the moment, so it wasn't like she had anything better to do with her time.

At least not until the chime of the doorbell reached her ears, letting her know that someone had entered her shop.

"Come on in!" she called to what she hoped was a potential customer while she began putting away her tools. "I'll be right with you!"

The lower floor of the house was divided into two rooms; the shop and the smithy. Both of them looked just about what you'd expect them to look like, with the shop being a cozy room where some of her finer products were on display and the smithy being a large open space containing a stove, an anvil, two whetstones, a workbench and a large board that held all of her tools.

As soon as she was finished putting away her tools, she quickly cleaned her hands in the bucket of water that she always had on hand whenever the stove was lit and headed towards the shop room. Once she entered the other room, she was met by the sight of a black-haired boy who had to be around her age looking at one of the swords mounted on the wall with his hands in his pockets. He had his back turned towards her so she couldn't see his face, but she noticed that he had a very strange red and white emblem on the back of his gray shirt, probably a family crest of some kind. The sight of it excited the young blacksmith, as families who were important enough to have their own crest were usually quite wealthy.

"Welcome to Lisbeth's Blacksmith Shop," she said, putting on her most charming smile as she announced her presence. "How may I help you?"

The boy didn't give any indication that he'd heard her. If Lisbeth hadn't known better, she would've almost thought that he'd fallen asleep on his feet. Feeling her mood sullen a bit at being ignored, she was just about to repeat her question again when he finally spoke up.

"I'm looking to replace a sword that I lost some time ago and was directed here by someone at the Adventurer's Guild," he said without even turning around to look at her when he talked. "I doubt I'll be able to find something of the same quality here, but I need a replacement so my swordsmanship doesn't get rusty."

Lisbeth could literally feel her eye twitch in annoyance at the boy's lack of manners and had to mentally restrain herself from snapping at him. This guy had some nerve, just waltzing into her shop and instantly declaring her craftsmanship as sub-par!

"What makes you think you won't find anything _better_ than whatever you had before?" she challenged him, taking a step forward. "I'm one of the best blacksmiths in town. If you won't find anything good enough here, then where would you find it?"

Some business-minded part of her brain was practically screaming at her that it was a bad idea to challenge a potential customer in this way, but it was drowned out by what she imagined was the sound of the blood in her veins starting to simmer. Wealthy customer or not, nobody would be allowed to insult her skills as a blacksmith to her face and get away with it!

"Pfft," the boy snorted as he finally turned around to face her. "I don't know, but probably somewhere that isn't called the 'Town of Beginners'."

Getting her first look at the boy's face, the first thought that crossed Lisbeth's mind was that he looked just as stoic as he sounded, with a pair of onyx-black eyes glancing disinterestedly at her from underneath a spiky black fringe and his lips resting in a thin line. For a brief moment, a look of... _something_ flashed in his eyes when he looked at her, but it was gone so quick that she might've just imagined it.

"If that's the case, then why did you even come in here in the first place?" she bit back towards him. At this point, she was seriously starting to consider whether she would be able to grab the mace that was hanging right next to the sword he had been looking at earlier and whack him on the head with it before he could react. She wasn't a bad mace user, and her Strength was much higher than her slender figure would lead you to believe.

The boy simply shrugged at her question, seemingly not at all bothered by her outburst. "I already told you, I'm not looking for a good sword, just something to hold me over until I can find something better."

"I heard you the first time," she fired back at him less than a second after he'd finished speaking. "But I don't sell 'just something to hold you over' in this shop. I deal in quality weapons and armor, and that alone. One day, a weapon crafted on my anvil will end the Demon King's life. If you're not interested in that, then kindly get the hell out of my shop."

For a few seconds, the boy just stared blankly at her with those infuriatingly calm eyes. Then, he lifted his right hand and pointed with his thumb over his shoulder towards the sword that he had been inspecting when Lisbeth had walked up to him.

"If I showed up at the Demon King's doorstep with this thing in hand, he'd be more likely to die from laughter than any damage dealt with the sword itself," he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Feeling her already simmering blood reach a boiling point, Lisbeth's right arm twitched indiscreetly in the direction of the mace that was hanging on the wall while the pink-haired girl herself was struggling to reel in her temper. She had never been particularly good at restraining herself once she began picking up steam, and this guy had somehow managed to push all of her buttons in under a few minutes.

' _Restrain yourself, Lisbeth,_ " she tried to reason with herself. ' _Just think of what it would do to your reputation if you whacked him on the head... even though he totally deserves it. Perhaps if I whack him hard enough he won't remember... no! Calming thoughts, Lisbeth! Calming thoughts!_ '

Before she could come up with a witty retort to this insult towards her pride, the doorbell gave off another chime and turned both of their attention towards the doorway, where a girl around their age had just entered. The girl in question had shoulder-length white hair and was dressed in a very revealing outfit with a short green cape slung over her shoulders, showing off her well-toned physique. She had purple eyes and a thin but notable scar running down her right cheek.

"A-ah, Chris!" Lisbeth smiled awkwardly towards her friend, thankful for the timely distraction from the infuriating teenager to her left. Who knows what would've happened if she had been left to simmer? "Here to pick up your dagger? I'm almost done with it. Just give me a few minutes to settle this and I'll be right with you!"

It wasn't until she had turned back towards the raven-haired boy that it registered in her mind that the Thief hadn't answered her. Frowning, the blacksmith turned back towards her friend only to find her staring wide-eyed at the raven-haired boy, who in turn had narrowed his eyes towards the green-clad girl; the first facial movement she had seen from him since he had entered her shop.

"This presence..." she heard him mumble under his breath. "You... what are _you_ doing here?"

Despite standing a good few feet away, apparently, Chris had also heard the boy's mumbling, because she flinched and took a hesitant step backward. For a few seconds, you could probably have heard a needle being dropped on the floor, it was so quiet. Lisbeth's gaze kept going back and forth between the two of them. Did they know each other?

"W-well, this is a surprise," the white-haired girl said, a bead of sweat slowly rolling down her scarred cheek. "I didn't expect to meet you again here of all places... Sasuke."

* * *

 _"Congratulations on having completed your first quest as part of the Adventurer's Guild."_

* * *

 **A/N:** _This one feels a bit short, but maybe that's just me wanting to go back to having my 10k words a chapter standard that I used to strive towards when I was still an active contributor on this site. At the moment, I would like to try and keep updating at a decent pace, so hopefully, you guys won't be too bothered by the length of the chapters._

 _So let's start by addressing the elephant in the room; Lisbeth. Whether or not she is the actual Liz from Sword Art Online who died and got reborn into this world, or if she is just another inhabitant of the Konosuba world who just happens to look exactly like her, have the same profession and is just as bad at controlling her temper, I'll leave up in the air. She isn't important to the overarching plot, and she will remain a side character regardless._

 _I also want to address Sasuke's class, since the poll has been up for a few days. While there are a good few people who have voted for the Adventurer class, this is not necessarily his final class. He just doesn't know what skills he wants to acquire, so he went with the class that would best allow him to test out different skills to decide what would be most beneficial. He might stay as an Adventurer for all eternity, he might switch to a different class once he has made up his mind. Currently, the Ghostblade class has the most votes in the poll, but its' description clearly states that it is focused on party play, and right now Sasuke doesn't have a party, so he has no reason to go into that class._

 _And just to address the start of the chapter, I know that the way I set up this currency makes no sense. That's the entire point. I couldn't find anything concrete about how the currency worked aside from the worth of a mithril coin and "Eris is equal to Yen", which doesn't really mean anything since those two currencies will literally never be in the same market so their value can't be compared, to begin with._

 _As always, I want to encourage my dear readers to take the time to tell me their opinions on the chapter, either in a Private Message or a Review. What parts did you like and what parts were horrible? Should I burn in hell for all eternity for adding a completely unrelated character to the story? Let me know, you may be able to affect the future of this story! I wish you all a great day!_


	4. A Temporary Party

**Author's Note:** _Before we start this chapter, I want to give a shout out to DALucifer13, who managed to point out two of the easter eggs in the last chapter. The AN in that chapter might've been a bit misleading, but there were actually a total of 4 references in the chapter if we are to include Lisbeth as one of them._

 _The first and most obvious one is the currency, which is based on the wizarding currency of Magical Britain in Harry Potter, where a silver sickle is worth 29 bronze knuts and a gold galleon is worth 17 sickles. The second one was the description of the former owner of Lisbeth's house as being an adventurer who retired after injuring his knee, which is a reference to the Hold Guards in Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, who constantly babble on about "I used to be an adventurer like you once, then I took an arrow in the knee". The third and final one (not including Lisbeth) is also a Skyrim reference, namely the Arcane Blacksmith skill that Lisbeth mentions, which is also a skill in the Smithing Skill Tree in Skyrim which does basically the same thing._

 _Other than that, I want to mention that I have been going over the first chapter and correcting some grammar and spelling errors that I've found in the published chapter, and will probably do so for the other chapters as well in the near future. With all that being said, let's get on with the story._

 **Disclaimer:** I own neither Naruto nor Konosuba. If I did, poor Yunyun wouldn't have been such a lonely little girl.

* * *

 **Chapter IV:** A Temporary Party

After her close run-in with Sasuke the previous day, and with her duties as the Goddess of Fortune becoming a lot more hectic in the absence of Aqua, Eris had decided that 'Chris' should take on a long-term quest that would require her to be out of the city for a while, at least until things had settled down a bit. When the raven-haired boy hadn't turned up in Axel even an hour after she had sent him on his way, she had gotten worried that something had gone wrong with his translation and went to look for him. The relief she had felt when he had finally turned up at the gates had however quickly turned to worry upon the realization that he had picked up on her presence in the area.

Unlike _another_ goddess who shall remain anonymous for the time being, Eris had actually done her research on the subjects she had been entrusted with. She was well aware that in Sasuke's world, well-trained shinobi were able to sense the presence of the living things around them through their chakra-enhanced senses, but she hadn't expected that ability to carry over into her world since they didn't have chakra here. It wasn't until Sasuke had located her in the crowd the other day that she realized that it was possible that the translation would've 'translated' this ability to lock onto a person's mana signature instead of their chakra.

This in and of itself wouldn't have been a problem if it hadn't been for the fact that he had instantly recognized her presence. The gods had a zero-tolerance policy for any kind of personal interaction between the divines and the people of the world they presided over because of the potential problems that could arise from it. Eris had gotten around this by creating a separate persona for herself so she could get to know the people of the town that called her their patron deity a bit better. She had however grown quite attached to the friends she had made using that persona, and the realization that it could be taken away from her if Sasuke found out about it and drew the connection between her false persona and her real identity had caused her to panic and flee the scene.

Having spent the night thinking about what to do to salvage the situation, she had decided to take some time off from adventuring and simply focus on her duties as a goddess for the time being. Sasuke didn't know about her identity as Chris, so if her presence didn't show up again for a while he would probably just assume that she had descended from the heavens to perform some divine task and then left again.

That plan had been ruined the moment she had arrived at Lisbeth's shop to pick up her enchanted dagger before she left and found the Uchiha himself in a heated discussion with the shop's owner.

"This presence..." she heard the raven-haired boy mumble under his breath. "You... what are _you_ doing here?"

The disguised goddess felt her heart beat wildly in her chest, unsure of what to do. If there had been any lingering hope that he hadn't recognized her presence and simply pursued her because she had been stalking him yesterday, that certainly confirmed that he knew _exactly_ who she was. One poorly worded sentence from the boy in front of her and her most important secret would be revealed. Her identity as 'Chris' would be taken away from her and she would lose all the friends she had made using that name forever. The mere thought of it made her lower lip tremble with emotion.

"W-well this is a surprise," Eris said, doing her best to try and sound more confident than she currently felt. "I didn't expect to meet you again here of all places... Sasuke."

Barely had the words left her lips before she mentally slapped herself for confirming her identity to him. Perhaps if she had acted as if she didn't know him, she could've just picked up her dagger and left without any incident. Eris had never been good at handling pressure, and the knowledge of what was at stake for her if she didn't solve this situation was causing her to lose her composure.

"Eh, you know this jerk, Chris?" Lisbeth spoke up, pointing towards Sasuke with a disgruntled look.

This turned out to be a blessing in the disguise because it gave Eris something to anchor her to the present instead of drowning in her own thoughts. Watching as Lisbeth's face turned sour when Sasuke didn't as much as move a facial muscle in reaction to her not so subtle attempt to annoy him, the goddess found her lips drawn out into a stiff but genuine smile.

"I guess you could say that," she laughed nervously, drawing the pink-haired girl's attention back to her again. "Hey, Liz? Would you mind giving us some space for a few minutes? I really need to talk to Sasuke about something. _Alone_."

She emphasized the last word and gave her friend a pleading look. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sasuke raise an eyebrow towards her when she said it, but he thankfully didn't say anything. Lisbeth was also giving her a strange look and Eris mentally prayed to her fellow gods that neither of them would pick up on how nervous she was. Apparently, that had been too much to ask for.

"Oh," Lisbeth said as a mischievous grin spread across her face. " _Oh_ , I get it. Sure, I'll just go finish up your dagger while you have your little talk. Just knock on the door when you're done."

The look on the girl's face when she said it let Eris know that she definitely did _not_ get it, but she could deal with that later. The most important thing was that she had managed to avoid a personal crisis, at least for the time being. Whether it was meant to last or not would be determined by how this conversation with Sasuke went; whether she would be forced to give up her persona as Chris and everything that came with it, or if she would be able to keep it and live happily ever after. No pressure, Eris. None at all.

Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, she waited until the door had slammed shut behind Lisbeth before she reached out a hand towards the door and focused her mana in the palm of her hand. A second later, her hand briefly gave off a faint white glow before the door she had been aiming at did the same, confirming that the spell had taken effect. She repeated the process with the front door, before she turned back towards the Uchiha, only to find him giving her a questioning look at her strange behavior.

"A Muffle spell," she explained to him. "It will ensure that no sound will pass through the affected object. Liz is a great friend, but I don't trust her not to eavesdrop on something she might deem as potential gossip."

Sasuke just offered a shrug in response to that, before going straight to the point. "I don't like having to repeat myself, but I'll ask again. Why are you here, Eris?"

There was a certain intensity to his gaze as he stared her down that did nothing to put her at ease. Being a goddess, Eris didn't have any parents and didn't know what it was like to have a family, but she imagined that this was what it would've felt like to be caught by her mother with her hand in the cookie jar. It was a decidedly unpleasant feeling that she prayed she wouldn't have to experience again.

Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves and considering her words carefully, she decided that the best thing she could do was to just be honest with him, at least partially. If he was intent on exposing her, then it wouldn't matter whether she lied to him or not and hopefully he would be considerate enough to not ruin her life once he learned of her reasons for living a double life. Hopefully.

"You know that I am this town's patron deity, right?" When she received a nod of confirmation from him, she continued. "In order to better look after the people of the town that bestowed that honor upon me, I decided that I wanted to get to know the people who lived here a bit better. However, the gods usually aren't allowed to interact with the mortals of this world on a personal level..."

She left that statement hanging, hoping he would connect the dots. Sasuke did not disappoint her.

"So you created an alternate identity for yourself so you could get to know your worshippers a bit better?" he asked, the intensity never leaving his black eyes. "Okay, let's pretend that I buy that. But if the gods can just descend to this world whenever they want, why are they dragging people here from other worlds to stop the Demon King? Or is that just some kind of game to you?"

The way his voice became increasingly colder when he asked his questions sent shivers down Eris' spine and she had to fight the urge to shrink back into herself. Now that she thought about it, she could see why he would interpret her presence here like that. She had never given much thought to why the gods had such strict rules about their interactions with the inhabitants of their world, but now she felt that she finally began to understand the reasons behind their zero-tolerance policy.

"O-of course it isn't!" she said hastily, feeling incensed that he could even suggest such a thing. "Just because we're gods doesn't mean that we're omnipotent! Whenever we descend to the surface, we are bound by the same laws of nature as anyone else, and most of us don't know the first thing about fighting! We wouldn't stand a chance against the Demon King!"

By the time she had finished her little rant, her breathing had picked up and she found that she had actually taken a step towards the Uchiha. For a few seconds, the two stared each other down defiantly until Eris couldn't stand the intensity of the boy's onyx black eyes anymore and averted her gaze to glance towards the door that led to the smithy. There was just something about Sasuke's eyes that really made her uncomfortable, even without his Sharingan active. They held a certain depth and emptiness that one really shouldn't find in the eyes of someone as young as him.

After a few seconds, the sound of Sasuke letting out a sigh brought Eris' attention back to the raven-haired boy. "Alright, I'll accept that answer for now. So if I were to walk through that door right now and tell the blacksmith girl about who you really are, what would happen?"

The Goddess of Fortune let out an involuntary hiccup when she saw him wave his hand towards the door, behind which Lisbeth was no doubt sulking because she couldn't listen in on their conversation, and the defiance she had felt upon hearing Sasuke suggest that she and her fellow gods were toying with the lives of innocents instantly left her.

"Y-you can't!" she exclaimed and rushed to place herself between Sasuke and the door in question. "Please Sasuke, you can't tell anyone in this world about my real identity. If you do, I won't be allowed to stay on the surface!"

It wasn't until she noticed the way that Sasuke's lips twitched and the almost predatory glint in his eyes that she realized that trusting this former war criminal to do the "right thing" may not have been such a good idea after all. As the potential weight of her mistake dawned on her, Eris felt an unwelcome chill spread through her chest and she couldn't help but shudder.

"That's an impressive level of dedication towards your people," Sasuke commented with a casual voice that somehow still managed to send chills down the goddess' spine. "Whatever, if you're really that desperate to keep this a secret, we can strike a bargain. I think you might be able to help me get my hands on something that I want, and if you'll help me without any hassle I'll be nice and consider keeping your real identity to myself."

 **-X-X-X-X-X-**

In hindsight, Sasuke almost felt bad for blackmailing Eris into helping him acquire a good weapon but justified it in his mind by thinking that the ends would justify the means in this case. Eris had been the one to ask him to defeat the Demon King in the first place, and the sooner he could get his hand on a good sword, the sooner he would be able to accomplish that. When he had pointed this out to the goddess in question, however, she had just huffed and pointedly turned away from him.

As it would turn out, getting his hands on a decent sword would be harder than he had first thought. After talking it over with the blacksmith girl, they had found out that the lack of quality weapons in Axel wasn't just because of their resident blacksmiths lacking the skills to create them. With the town being located so far away from the capital and any place where one could potentially find any ore of decent quality, the blacksmiths were stuck working with low-grade materials, something which apparently even Eris had been unaware of until now.

"So this is the best you can do?" Sasuke asked as he gave the sword in his hand a few swings. The weapon in question was actually pretty well suited to him length-wise, but he could tell even from just a glance that it severely lacked in its' durability and weight.

The pink-haired girl to his right nodded in confirmation. "Well, it's the best sword I've forged so far. I've gotten bids for it as high as 120 000 Eris. Of course, it's not the best sword in the world, but without access to better materials, I don't think I could create anything better."

Sasuke had to actively hold himself back from correcting her on that, seeing as both girls were already annoyed with him and he didn't want to aggravate them further. The design of the weapon was elegant and functional, and he could tell that the weapon was fairly well balanced. His main gripe with it was that this kind of design didn't work with low-quality materials. Unless weapon durability worked differently in this world, which admittedly it actually might now that he thought about it, the blade was too thin and too inflexible to be able to take a hit from a heavier weapon without breaking.

Despite his earlier dismissal of her skill, Sasuke could tell that Lisbeth was talented in her chosen craft. Given the right materials, she could probably forge something decent enough for him to hold him over for a long time. However, there was a difference in his mind between being a good craftsman and being a good blacksmith and by his own estimation, the pink-haired girl only qualified as the former. A more experienced blacksmith would've been able to tell that a certain material and a certain design didn't mesh well together, and would've altered the design to compensate for its' lack of whatever attribute was required for it to work.

"So if we can get ahold of some better material, you could craft me a decent sword?" he asked for clarification, glancing briefly at Eris who just glared back at him, knowing that she would be the one responsible for that.

"It'd be beyond decent, thank you very much!" Lisbeth said heatedly toward him, obviously still annoyed that he refused to call her work 'good'. "But yeah, if I had better materials to work with, I could make a better sword for you."

Glancing briefly at the weapon in his hand one more time, he sheathed it and handed it back to the blacksmith. "So what would be the most efficient way of getting ahold of some better materials, then?" he asked. "And what materials are we looking for here?"

For a moment, the pink-haired girl seemed to contemplate the question while she carefully wrapped her precious sword up in a storage cloth and put it back behind the counter. Once she was done, she turned back towards Sasuke and Eris. "Well, that would depend a bit on what kind of sword you want. Generally, you can find most materials on the marketplace in the Capital, but any Grade C material or higher would most likely cost you a small fortune."

Confused by her wording, Sasuke turned to the goddess who had brought him to this world with a raised eyebrow. Behind Lisbeth's back, Eris stuck her tongue out towards the Uchiha but answered his unspoken question anyway. "You're probably not aware of this yet Sasuke since you're still just a _novice adventurer_ , but crafting materials and weapons are graded by quality, starting at Grade E and going all the way up to A."

Despite himself, Sasuke felt his left eye twitch when the white-haired girl put emphasis on the words 'novice adventurer'. Apparently, the threat of being exposed as the goddess she was wasn't severe enough for Eris to avoid poking fun at him needlessly. For a brief moment, he considered whether it was worth revealing her identity just out of spite but ultimately decided against it. They had struck a deal, and he would hold up on his end of it. For now, at least.

"Actually now that you mention that," Lisbeth's voice brought both of their attention back to the blacksmith. "How are you going to pay for any of this? If you're still a _novice adventurer_ , then you should be like piss poor, right?"

While the question was an entirely relevant one given the discussion, the smug grin the pink-haired girl was sending Sasuke's way told him that she didn't really care much either way and only said it because she thought she had backed him into a corner. Unfortunately for her, that wasn't the case.

"I won't be paying at all," he responded while casually lifting his finger and pointing it at the goddess in disguise. "She will be the one paying."

Like a piece of butter in a hot frying pan, the smug look practically melted off of the young blacksmith's face. Behind her friend, the 'Thief' grimaced and did a very un-goddesslike gesture with her hand to let him know exactly what she thought of what he had just said. Her smug look now replaced by a look of shock and confusion, Lisbeth turned around to look at her friend.

"Wha-... he can't be serious, right?" she asked with disbelief clearly evident in her voice. "He's just being a lying prick, right Chris? Chris?"

The white-haired girl looked like she was caught in an internal struggle between trying to give her friend a reassuring expression and trying to glare absolute murder in Sasuke's direction. After settling for narrowing her eyes at him in obvious disdain, she swiftly schooled her face into a neutral expression and turned her attention back to her confused friend, who was still staring at her in disbelief.

"No, he's not lying, Liz," she said with a surprisingly even voice. "I owe him a few favors, we agreed that we would call it even if I got him a new sword."

' _Technically not a lie._ ' Sasuke thought. Lisbeth however, didn't seem satisfied with the answer. "What kind of favors do you owe this jerk for you to offer to buy a custom-made quality sword for him?" she asked as she crossed her arms over her chest and glanced suspiciously over her shoulder towards Sasuke, who just rolled his eyes. "Anything better than what I already got in my shop is going to cost at least 200 000 Eris, at the very least. And that's not even taking into account the added cost if you're set on getting Grade C or above materials!"

Upon hearing Lisbeth's price evaluation of the quality of weapon he had requested, Sasuke couldn't help but wince. While he may not have too good a grasp on the economy in this world, he could tell from the faces the two girls were making that they were talking about a fair amount of money. Watching the white-haired girl bite her lip in contemplation, the thought suddenly struck him that maybe she wasn't as well off as he had originally believed and wouldn't be able to afford the weapon he had asked of her. While Sasuke would be the first to admit that he was a bit rough around the edges when it came to ethics, completely rinsing a girl's bank account just to get a decent sword didn't feel right, even to him.

He was just starting to contemplate whether he should speak up and tell Eris that perhaps he didn't need that good a sword just to hold him over for now when the girl herself surprised both of the room's other occupants when she snapped her fingers and her face lit up, as if she'd suddenly had an epiphany.

"That's why we won't be buying the materials from the Capital!" she said with a hint of excitement in her voice. "We'll simply mine the materials on our own! Liz, you have a pretty high leveled mining skill, don't you?"

When the pink-haired blacksmith nodded her head in confirmation, Eris' face split into a grin. "Great, then we won't need to waste any money on buying the materials and that should lower the price a bit, right? There is an Ebony Mine located about a two days march South-East of Axel, and we could even stay for a little extra while if you want to stack up on more quality materials while we're there."

Sasuke couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the excited girl, who was practically glowing with the excitement at the thought of leaving the town on a journey to this Ebony Mine. Just a few seconds ago, she had still been sulking about being blackmailed into helping him get a good sword, but the thought of going on an adventure had practically turned her into a completely different person.

To his right, Lisbeth was having a similar reaction, though her thoughts quickly seemed to drift to the possibility of getting her hands on some rare materials, if the way she began contemplatively stroking her chin was any indication.

"I suppose that could work if we could get there," she said uncertainly. "Ebony is a Grade B material, so I certainly wouldn't mind getting ahold of some of that without having to go bankrupt. But how are we going to get there? The monsters down that way are said to be like super strong, and we got a blacksmith, a thief, and a novice adventurer. Not exactly a band of elites."

Sasuke openly snorted at her hesitation, knowing full well that his definition of "super strong" probably differed greatly from the girls' definition. He was about to comment about that but was once again surprised when Eris spoke up before him.

"Sasuke only counts as a novice because he just recently registered with the Adventurer's Guild," she said as she caught Sasuke's eye over Lisbeth's shoulder. "He is actually pretty strong, and I have another friend who I think I might be able to persuade to help us get there. She is a Crusader, so she will be able to keep whatever monsters we encounter off of us long enough to kill them."

Lisbeth still didn't seem to be entirely convinced, glancing over Sasuke's attire with a critical eye, but she eventually agreed that it might be worth the risk, as long as they all agreed that they would turn around and head back if it looked like they were in over their heads. For some reason, Eris looked a bit hesitant to accept that term, but she quickly brushed it aside and the group of three agreed to meet up at the Southern Gate at 8 am the following morning to get an early start.

 **-X-X-X-X-X-**

Later that evening, Sasuke found himself sitting by a table in a secluded corner of the Adventurer's Guild with a plate of roast beef and mashed potatoes in front of him. The corner's only other occupant was a young girl a year or two younger than him, who was sitting by herself at the table next to his and appeared to be spending her time building a house of cards. Sasuke didn't really pay her any mind, he had more important things on his mind.

After he had split up from Eris and the blacksmith girl, he had headed straight to the market district to buy a backpack for the journey ahead, along with some emergency provisions and a first aid kit. Eris had said that it would take them about 2 days to reach the Ebony Mine, and since Lisbeth was the only one among them who had the Mining Skill, it would take some time for them to gather all the materials they needed. They probably wouldn't be gone for more than a week at most, but it never hurt to be well-prepared.

Satisfied that he was about as ready as he could be for the journey ahead, Sasuke's thoughts turned towards his temporary party members. Looking back at their interactions from that afternoon, it was obvious that neither of them was too fond of him. He didn't really care too much about the blacksmith girl, but he couldn't help but feel a little guilty at his treatment of Eris. Without her, he wouldn't even be sitting here right now and would never have been given the chance for redemption, and he hadn't exactly repaid her in kind. Her dislike of him was 100 percent justified, and knowing that it was bothered him a lot more than he had expected it to.

' _Too focused on the horizon to see what was in front of me, huh?_ ' he thought with a humorless chuckle. Or more accurately, too focused on achieving his goals to see the destruction that he always left in his wake.

Putting the last piece of roast beef in his mouth and pushing away his empty plate, the raven-haired boy let out a sigh. Perhaps he should apologize to the goddess before they left tomorrow morning? Even though she had seemed excited about the prospect of going on this adventure, it didn't sit right with him that she would be risking her life and that of her friends just because he wanted a better sword than what was currently available to him.

"Please, just for a little while! I'm not planning anything, I swear!"

Sasuke's attention was returned to the present by a commotion at the table next to his. Glancing over towards the scene, he noticed that the girl who occupied it had been joined by a plump older man who was leaning over the table and clasping the girl's hands in his, despite the girl's obvious attempts to shake herself free from his grip. Frowning at the desperate look in the man's eyes, Sasuke slowly reached toward his belt to put his hand on the handle of his sword, only to be reminded that he didn't have it anymore.

"N-no way!" the girl cried out, leaning as far back in her seat as she could without falling to get away from the man who was invading her personal space. "E-even if i-it is for your sick mother, it w-wouldn't be right to lie to her like that!"

By now, the scene the two were causing had drawn the attention of many of the tavern's other patrons, but so far no one had moved to intervene. The man however either didn't notice or didn't care that he was causing a scene. He had his attention focused solely on the girl who was squirming uncomfortably in the seat in front of him.

"Please, I beg you, just once!" he shouted as he practically climbed onto the table to keep hold of the girl's shaking hands. "She told me that her only regret was not being able to see me get married and give her grandchildren and you're the only one I can ask this of, Yunyun! If you were to come with me, just this once, I'm sure that would put her at ease!"

From where he was sitting, he could see the beginning of tears start to form in the girl's big red eyes as she kept trying to shake off the man, who was obviously spouting a load of bullcrap. For a moment, Sasuke glanced toward the other adventurers in the tavern to see that they were still keeping their distance from the scene. ' _Some adventurers you are,_ ' he thought with a scowl as he grabbed the knife from his empty plate and rose to his feet.

"Please! You only need to pretend to be my lover for a little while!" the man cried when the girl, Yunyun apparently, finally managed to free herself from his grip and put some distance between them. "You're my only friend! No one else will help me with this!"

The black-haired girl froze upon hearing the words "only friend", and slowly turned around to look at the man who was stumbling to get back on his feet. For a brief moment, she seemed to be conflicted about leaving him and that gave the man just enough time to regain his balance and attempt to lunge toward her again, only to freeze when a food knife embedded itself in the wooden table where he was kneeling, just a mere inch away from his hand.

With practiced ease, Sasuke somersaulted over the desperate man to put himself between him and the frightened girl, his gaze never leaving the older man.

"I think that's quite enough of that," he said with a voice that caused the man to outwardly shiver. "The girl has made it quite clear that she doesn't want anything to do with you, now leave her alone. You're causing a scene."

Behind him, he could hear the girl let out a sigh of relief at his timely interference. For a moment, the two men stared each other down, the older man's eyes as wide as saucers as they traveled between Sasuke, the food knife, and then back again. Then, he seemed to regain his bearings, as his face contorted into an ugly grimace.

"Who do you think you are, you fucking brat?!" he screamed, as what little sanity he still had seemed to slip from his grasp. "You wanna steal my girl, is that it huh? HUH?! Well, I got news for you! She's already mine, I'm telling you! You hear me?! She's mine! MINE!"

Sasuke stared impassively as the man went off on a tangent, yelling and screaming while his bloodshot eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head. Around them, people were starting to whisper amongst themselves while behind him, a quiet whimper let Sasuke know exactly what the girl herself thought about the situation.

When the man finally broke off his rant to catch his breath, Sasuke spoke up. "Are you done yet? I don't give a crap about the girl, but I was trying to enjoy a peaceful meal in the evening before a long journey, and you ruined it, so I suggest you either shut up or scram before I lose my temper."

That seemed to be the waterdrop that caused the glass to overflow because the man let out an incoherent scream and grabbed the knife that Sasuke had thrown earlier and lunged towards the two teenagers. At that moment, the entire room burst into motion with the other patrons screaming, adventurers moving to intervene in the confrontation and Yunyun letting out a terrified shriek and covered her head with her arms.

Time seemed to slow down around Sasuke as he briefly activated his Sharingan to better make out the angle at which his assailant was swinging his food knife before he crouched low to avoid the wild swing of the man's arm and the heel of his right foot made contact with the man's abdomen. Using the upward momentum of his counterattack, the Uchiha literally lifted the man off the ground before twisting his leg and bringing it down on the man in a guillotine kick that broke the table under his target and at the very least a few of the man's ribs along with it.

Upon impact, the man let out a cry of agony and coughed up a generous amount of blood. With his enhanced sight, Sasuke to see every drop of the red liquid as it sailed through the air before he deactivated his Doujutsu and took a step back. The whole ordeal was over in less than 3 seconds.

* * *

" _Whatever, if you're really that desperate to keep this a secret, we can strike a bargain._ "

* * *

 **Author's Note** **:** _This took a whole lot longer to finish than I had expected, but life got in the way. I actually wanted to try and aim for at least 7k words with this one but figured I might as well upload it, as I really want to try and move the story forward and the aftermath of that last little stunt Sasuke pulled would probably take me a few k words go through. Also, part of the reason why I struggled with this chapter was that it started with Eris' point of view. With her being a goddess, I found myself second guessing everything I wrote about her and her thought process. I mean, I'm not a goddess. I don't know how they think or feel._

 _When this chapter is uploaded, I will have closed the poll. The Ghostblade class won with 7 votes, with Adventurer coming in second with 5, meaning that Sasuke most likely will change his class eventually, once he's got a good reason for it in the story. All in all, 21 people voted on Sasuke's class, and I want to extend a thank you to everyone who did._

 _Oh, and just in case someone has missed it, I always respond to reviews in PM, even if it is just to say "Thank you for your support", so if you're not in the habit of checking your Private Messages, please do._

 _And for those of you who want to see a bit more action, it should pick up in either the next chapter or the following one after that, depending on how long it takes for Sasuke to get his ass out of town. Until then, I wish you all a good day! I hope that you liked the chapter and even if you didn't, feel free to share your thoughts on it in a PM or a review!_


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